A small Wisconsin community is dealing with controversy over a lesson to teach students about the dangers of distracted driving.

During Monday morning announcements, the school told students four of their classmates had been killed in a crash involving texting and driving.

However, the students were not dead and an announcement about 10 minutes later explained the lesson.

I’m pretty sure students didn’t need an explanation to understand the actual lesson of this exercise: Your school administrators are stupid assholes whom you should never trust again.

Yeah, the students get it:

“It wasn’t really effective. They were trying to teach using scare tactics which doesn’t teach, it just makes you not trust the teachers and any of the announcements you’re going to get,” Sam Bolen, another student, said.

I mean, just imagine what would happen if, a year from now, one of the students really was killed in a car accident. The school administrators would make the announcement, and half the student body would think it was another lie. For those close to the deceased, it would create false hopes that would eventually be crushed. And at a time when they should be dealing with their grief, they’d all be arguing over whether it was real. It would be pretty ugly.

“A lot of our friends and fellow students actually started crying because they actually thought these people were dead, and so I think a lot of them actually called their parents in school too,” Madison Trombley, a student at Brodhead High School, said.

It should be obvious that this is a terrible idea, shouldn’t it? You’ve got to know it’s going to cause a lot of emotional distress. And emotional well being is important at Brodhead High School, as we can learn by examining their student handbook, in the section on “Bullying and Harassing Behavior,” which runs to two full pages:

The School District of Brodhead is committed to providing a safe, secure, and respectful learning environment for all of its students. We encourage positive interpersonal relations between all members of the school community.

Such as lying to them that their friends are dead?

Bullying has harmful social, physical, psychological, and academic impacts on the victim, the bully, and the bystanders, and creates a disruption to the learning environment.

You know what else does all that? Lying to students that their friends are dead

Bullying is intentional, unprovoked, deliberate, and hostile behavior without legitimate purpose that is intended to inflict physical, emotional, or mental distress or suffering on another individual or group of individuals.

Mental distress…like making them think their friends are dead?

Bullying takes many forms, but may be represented by (but not limited to) the following examples:

[…]

–       indirect actions like spreading rumors, intimidation through gestures, glaring or threatening facial expressions, extortion, or coercion.

You know, for a bunch of people that care so much about every aspect of student emotional health when it comes to bullying, they sure are a bunch of clueless fuckwits when it comes to the harm inflicted by their own ill-conceived attempts to Teach Students An Important Lesson.

I blogged about something similar that happened in 2008 in California, and I think that some of the suggestions I had for concerned parents might turn out to be applicable now:

Or maybe the parents of one of the students could keep him home the next day, and when the school calls, they could say that he hung himself in the garage last night, and that they don’t understand why because his therapy was going so well, so could anybody at the school think of something that might have upset him? The next day, he could return to school and explain that it was just a way to teach them an important lesson about honesty.

Or maybe a bunch of the families could get together to send the school a lot of official-looking paperwork claiming they were suing for $10 million dollars for intentional inflection of emotional distress. Then the next day they could explain it was all a hoax to teach them an important lesson about thinking before they do things like this.

Then the day after that, they could sue the school for $10 million dollars for intentional inflection of emotional distress. That would teach them a lesson.

I guess I’m less optimistic now, because I doubt they’d learn a thing.

Hat tip: Robby Soave at Reason.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Entire Brodhead High School Administration Eaten By Alligators

I just got an email that has begins with the following text in large centered print (only the last few lines matter for this post):

IFC Films

and The Fortune Academy

Invite you to Join Former Inmates at a Special Halfway House Screening of

The Standford Prison Experiment

Post-Film Q&A will focus on the current state of the American Prison System and the psychological dynamic of power
with Dr. Philip Zimbardo, Billy Crudup, Michael Angarano and director Kyle Patrick Alvarez

When:
Tuesday, July 14th @6PM

Where:
The Fortune Academy
630 Riverside Drive (at 140th Street)

Note what’s missing from the location: The city and state. I get something like this in my email every few months — a marketing communication about some event for which the marketer just assumes I know what city they’re in. It would be one thing if this was from some sort of city-specific mailing list, but quite often it’s just some generic marketing outlet. This time it was from [redacted employee] at [redacted promoter].

Still, even before Googling it, I’m pretty sure the location is probably in New York City, with Washington D.C. a good second guess, since only people from those two cities are the kinds of arrogant fucktards who assume theirs is the only city that matters.

Google tells me that the Fortune Academy is indeed in New York, NY. (The closest the email comes to telling me this is a block of text on the history of the Fortune Academy that mentions it’s in West Harlem.) If you live around there, this might be an interesting event for you to attend, although general pissedness makes me want to point out that some people are skeptical about the lessons of the Standford Prison Experiment.

This isn’t rocket science: If you’re going to send out event announcements to people who live 800 miles away, at least have the courtesy to tell them what city the event is in.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at A Brief and Admittedly Petulant Note to IFC Films and [redacted]

The site is mostly clickbait nonsense, but this article displays an attitude I’ve encountered before — it’s a why-aren’t-people-outraged piece — and I wanted to try to come up with a response.

Our nation’s police officers are under attack. Between last week and this week, three police officers have been gunned down in cold blood. Yet there are no protests. No buildings are being looted. The president isn’t saying that one of those officers could be his son.

What exactly would people be protesting? More to the point, who would they be addressing their protests to?

Officer Gregg Benner, a Rio Rancho, N.M., police officer, was shot on Monday night. The 49-year-old Air Force veteran had been with the police department almost four years. He was survived by his wife and five adult children. His killer has been brought to justice.

The protests in Ferguson and Baltimore broke out because people felt they weren’t getting the justice they deserved. What exactly should people be protesting here? The shooter, Andrew Romero, has been arrested, he’s been charged with murder, and he’s is being held on a $5 million bond. The FBI is also taking an interest. The system is working. There’s no one to protest against.

Instead, Rio Rancho residents have been showing support for the Benner’s family and the police department. The memorial at the site where he was shot is covered in flowers and flags.

Officer Kerrie Orozco was murdered in Omaha, Neb., on Wednesday by Marcus D. Wheeler, a 26 year-old black male. Wheeler was killed during the shootout with Orozco.

Again, why should there be protests? The person who murdered Officer Orozco is dead. You can’t get much more justice than that. What would protesters be protesting for?

Rather than protest, people gathered to mourn the loss. Hundreds of people attended Kerrie Orozco’s funeral, and thousands lined the streets along the route.

And on Sunday, Officer James Bennett Jr. was shot and killed in his patrol car in New Orleans. A manhunt is underway for his killer (H/T The Gateway Pundit).

Three unnecessary deaths all within a week of one another. Three lives cut short, yet no one from our government seems to care. This is disgusting.

One killer arrested, one shot dead by police, and one the subject of a massive police manhunt. I’d say people from the government care rather a lot. The criminal justice system comes down very hard on cop killers. You don’t need fiery speeches from politicians and protesters when the system is working.

All across the country, police officers are under attack by the very criminals they are trying to protect us from. Killing a cop used to be a line that almost no one would cross. Now, it seems like every other day we read about another officer down.

Actually, the number of police officer killings has been fairly steady lately, and it’s down quite a bit since the high point of police killings in the 1970’s.

President Barack Obama, Al Sharpton, and the rest of their race-baiting ilk are directly responsible for these atrocities. Through their efforts to criminalize the police force, they have created an open season on police officers.

It would be nice to offer some evidence for a claim like that. The three examples in this article certainly don’t appear to have been the result of a generalized anti-police sentiment. We don’t yet know why Officer Bennett was shot, but both of the other officers were shot by people with long criminal records. Wheeler shot at cops trying to arrest him, and Romero was trying to avoid arrest.

Police officers are out there every day trying to keep us safe. They aren’t perfect. None of us are. However, they represent law and order in this country, and when you attack them, you are attacking everything this country is built upon.

Uhm…actually…this country was kinda founded on fighting against British law and order…so maybe that’s not the best argument…

Yet there have been no mass protests. There have been no riots demanding justice for these slain officers.

You know what kind of people have protests and riots? People who feel they have no other way of being heard, no other way of attracting attention to their needs, no other way of getting justice.

The police don’t have that problem. One of the perpetrators has already been arrested, and another is dead. The third is still at large, but it’s not because nobody cares about the officer he killed. Nobody’s protesting over murdered police officers because the police don’t need protests to get justice.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Protests Are Not For the Police

Last summer, on June 28th, I saw Arizona Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand place an 8-week old calico kitten in a DeWalt 5-quart blender and press the start button, killing it instantly. She then feasted hungrily on the bloody remains, consuming the poor creature, scales and all. It is the single most vile act of animal cruelty I have ever witnessed, and by coming forward now, I hope to put a spotlight on the problem of animal cruelty.

Update: It has come to my attention that Kirsten Gillibrand is actually a Senator. I regret the error, but I stand by the substance of my story, and by coming forward, I hope to put a spotlight on the problem of animal cruelty.

Update: A zoologist who reads my blog has pointed out that the material covering the skin of domestic cats is technically referred to as fur not scales. I acknowledge his superior grasp of feline anatomy and I regret my error, however I still stand by the substance of my story and I hope it will put a spotlight on the problem of cruelty to animals.

Update: Further research has revealed that Senator Gillibrand represents New York, not Arizona. I once witnessed Arizona Senator Tom Udall throw an armadillo in a wood chipper, and apparently in my emotional distress I had conflated the two incidents. I regret the error, but I stand by the substance of my story, which I hope to put a spotlight on the problem of mistreatment of animals.

Update: Friends have pointed out that on June 28th of last year I was actually in Kentucky attending the wedding of my cousin Margery. Still, I’m sure the incident must have been in June or early July. Maybe August. Anyway, I regret the error, but I stand by the substance of my story. And I hope this will put a spotlight on the problem of cruelty against animals.

Update: A spokesperson from the DeWalt corporation has apprised me of the fact that DeWalt is a manufacturer of portable power tools, not kitchen appliances. I once witnessed George Clooney cut the head off a goat with a reciprocating saw and I had conflated the two incidents. The implement used by Senator Gillibrand was actually a Hitachi blender. I apologize to the DeWalt corporation for my error, but I stand by the rest of my story, which I hope will put a spotlight on the problem of mistreatment of animals.

Update: Dearest visitors, loyal readers, it is with a heavy heart and a sorrowful soul that I put pen to paper to write this paragraph. After extensive consultation and prayer with my spiritual advisers, I have come to realize that I may have inadvertently posted a message earlier today that might have lead some readers to incorrectly conclude that I had seen New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand kill a kitten in a blender and consume the entrails.

I apologize if any of you feel I may have mislead you, and while I regret the error, the issue of cruelty to animals is a serious one, so I hope it’s just putting more of a spotlight on the problem. I hope it’s not undermining our advocacy, because this is important.

I’m sure Senator Gillibrand will understand, because she expressed a similar sentiment when said she hopes the recent news coverage of the UVA campus rape hoax will put a spotlight on the problem of campus rape:

Update: I’m sorry. Every sane person knows that using false or highly suspect examples to support your argument is a good way to undermine the very cause you’re fighting for. I only wrote that earlier stuff because somebody gave me a bad batch of Flakka. I don’t know what Senator Gillibrand’s explanation is. Maybe she uses the same Flakka dealer.

(Hat tip: Simple Justice.)

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Kirsten Gillibrand Put a Kitten In A Blender

My wife noticed this in the news a day or two ago, and my initial thought was that a woman who suspected her date was trying to dose her could use drug-detecting nail polish to check her drink. On further consideration, however, I’m not sure that makes any sense. I mean, if she’s so suspicious of her date that she wants to test her drink, is there really any point to doing the test? Shouldn’t she just get the heck out of there? What’s the thinking for sticking out the date? “He strikes me as the kind of man that would knock me out and rape me, but if the drug test clears him, I’ll stick around and maybe we’ll make out”?

I suppose it makes some sense at a social event or a busy club, where a total stranger could dose your drink without you ever knowing it, although even then it’s only going to stop the small percentage of rapes that involve drugs as a means of controlling the victim. Also, unless the indicator chemical goes on as a clear coat over other colors, it probably won’t give women the color choices they want.

Anyway, I wouldn’t have given it any more thought, except that I stumbled across a link on Twitter to an article about Undercover Colors by Melissa McEwan at the feminist site Shakesville. Some of her concerns are similar to mine, but a few of her complaints are frankly baffling.

Yeah. I have a couple of problems with that. Tara Culp-Ressler does a good job of compiling some of the obvious objections being made by anti-rape activists.

Like: Once again, potential victims are being tasked with rape prevention.

As opposed to who? Most rapes occur in private settings with only the victim and the rapist present, and the rapist is not going to be interested in rape prevention.

Like: Once again, we’re preemptively blaming victims. (How long before a woman who is sexually assaulted after being drugged is asked why she wasn’t wearing nail polish that could have prevented it?)

No, we’re not blaming the victims. It’s possible that at some point in the future someone will blame a victim, and that someone should be called out for being an asshole, but we’re not doing that now. Are you angry at companies that make car alarms because if you don’t have one and your car is stolen, some people will say you should have had an alarm? When someone offers you a choice, why would you get mad at them because someone else, who you consider to be a jerk, might criticize you for your choice?

Like: Once again, we’re focusing on women detecting roofies, rather than the men who put roofies in drinks in the first place.

Well, these people have a plan for detecting roofies, so that’s what they’re focusing on. If you think they should focus on getting men to stop putting roofies in drinks, what’s the plan for doing that? How has it been working so far? I’m willing to believe that initiatives to discourage sexual assault have some effect, but none of them are a panacea that obsoletes all other approaches.

Like: Being able to detect roofies in your drink only protects you; the person who put them there can move on to someone who isn’t wearing nail polish.

I’m not sure I’m understanding that correctly, but it sounds like McEwan is saying that because drug-detecting nail polish would not prevent all rapes, it’s a bad idea to use it to prevent any rapes. This sounds like some kind of radical egalitarian nonsense. Should we not have installed airbags in cars until we could afford to install them in all cars? Should we not produce new drugs to cure diseases unless we can make them cheaply enough for everyone?

There are so many reasons that this is problematic, and they all boil down to this: Individual solutions to systemic problems don’t work. It’s true whether we’re talking about unemployment, childcare options, or rape prevention.

Individual solutions work just fine for individuals who are able to take advantage of them. Not everybody can benefit from them, but not everybody can benefit from systemic approaches either. No rape prevention program aimed at changing men’s attitudes toward sexual violence is going to be 100% effective. Some men are just psychopaths.

And let us all take a moment to appreciate that we’re being told to buy something to prevent rape. Of course. Because the market solves everything. The market has never met a problem that screaming “bootstraps!” and admonishing crass consumerism can’t fix.

Oh dear God. You know, I understand the people who rant at capitalism, because capitalists are so often terrible people (Donald Trump, please call your office), but ranting at the free market is just bizarre. I mean, here are some people using their own time and money to try to solve at least part of a serious problem, and you don’t have to have anything to do with it if you don’t to, and somehow that’s a problem.

Besides, despite what I said earlier, there are probably going to be some women who find it useful to check if a drink is drugged. I would think, for example, that a woman who has been the victim of a “date rape drug” before might appreciate the peace of mind of being able to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. It could take some of the fear out of social situations.

Another group that would probably benefit is professional escorts, who routinely take the risk of spending time alone with strange men, and often turn down drinks out of fear of being roofied. With a discrete way to test the drink, they could be more accepting of hospitality and create a friendlier mood.

And while I was writing this, Elizabeth Nolan Brown wrote about the same subject at Reason:

At the crux of most of these complaints is the axiom that we should teach men not to rape instead of teaching women not to be raped. And that’s an important message! Too much cultural focus for too long has been on how a women’s own conduct contributed or may contribute to her assault, in a way that winds up absolving assailants of culpability.

But teaching men not to rape and helping women avoid rape aren’t mutually exclusive options. It’s been said so many times already so as to be a cliche, but no one accuses security cameras of encouraging “theft culture”. And neither do most people blame theft victims for getting robbed just because they didn’t have security cameras.

And if they do blame theft victims for getting robbed because they don’t have security cameras, they’re idiots, and it would be ridiculous to argue against the sale of security cameras because idiots would blame victims for not having them. You shouldn’t give idiots that much power over the choices available to sane people.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Undercover Colors Under Fire

[…] Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg announced a $120 million donation to San Francisco-area schools. That donation came only a few years after California considered a ballot measure to increase funding for its schools. Zuckerberg was notably absent from the campaign to pass the measure.

That detail is germane to Gore’s point about charity and democracy. Indeed, there seems to be a trend of billionaires and tech firms making private donations to public institutions ostensibly with the goal of improving public services. Yet, many of these billionaires are absent from efforts to raise public resources for those same institutions. Zuckerberg is only one example.

For instance, hedge funders make big donations to charter schools. Yet, the hedge fund industry lobbies against higher taxes that would generate new revenue for education.

Likewise, there are the Koch Brothers, who simultaneously finance the nationwide anti-tax movement while making huge donations to public institutions.

Meanwhile, Microsoft boasts about making donations to schools, while the company has opposed proposals to increase taxes to fund those schools.

The selfish bastards! They’re willing to donate huge amounts of their own money to causes they care about, but they don’t want to force other people to support those causes! That’s just how evil they are!

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Selfish Billionaires

Ardis defended his actions, which led to search warrants, a police visit to a West Bluff residence and the arrest of one occupant on a marijuana-possession charge.

He said the profane tweets, on a Twitter account created by Peoria resident Jon Daniel, could not be tolerated. That was true even after the account was re-labeled as a parody and was deactivated.

“I still maintain my right to protect my identity is my right,” Ardis said in an interview with the Journal Star before the council meeting.

“Are there no boundaries on what you can say, when you can say it, who you can say it to?” Ardis said. “You can’t say (those tweets) on behalf of me. That’s my problem. This guy took away my freedom of speech.”

Peoria City Council member Jim Montelongo pretty much nails it:

Montelongo said the episode represented an abuse of Ardis’ authority, as well as the police department’s.

“There was too much power of force used on these pranksters,” said Montelongo, the 4th District councilman. “It made it look like the mayor received preferential treatment that other people don’t get or will never get.”

That’s exactly right. Ardis is abusing his mayoral power when he uses it in service of his personal needs. In some ways, it’s no different from when a business executive brings his wife along on a trip and uses the company account to pay for the ticket. What makes it worse, of course, is that Ardis’s little power trip resulted in an armed raid on someone’s house and suppression of free speech.

As an aside, Radley brings up a good point:

Yesterday, Illinois State’s Attorney Jerry Brady announced that he would not seek criminal charges against the man who ran a parody Twitter account purporting to be Peoria, Ill., Mayor Jim Ardis. That’s because there is no state law against impersonating someone online. (Even if there were, it’s likely that the Twitter account itself would fall under the First Amendment protections for parodying public figures.)

[…]

We’ve already discussed Ardis’s power complex issues here. But that isn’t the only troubling part of this case. It would also be interesting to hear the explanation as to why Judges Kirk Schoebein, Lisa Wilson and Kim Kelley all signed off on warrants to investigate a crime that doesn’t exist. And why the police then executed those warrants.

The warrants reportedly listed drugs among the items to be searched for — based on some posted pictures of drug paraphernalia — but they also listed computers because of the impersonation issue, which seems like a problem.

Look, there are a lot of parodies online, and the targets usually just learn to live with them, like adults. If somebody out there starts a fake Windypundit blog in my name, I might be able to do something about it under intellectual property law (although not if it’s purely parody, a well-protected speech right), but there’s no way I could get the police to go after them. Even when the person pretending to be someone else does so with malice and causes harm, the police are unlikely to get involved if there’s no straight-up crime like fraud or threats of violence. At least not unless there’s an ego-crazed maniac like Jim Ardis pressuring them to do his bidding.

Meanwhile, Ardis is apparently working from the sociopath playbook and blaming everyone else for his problems:

In his pre-meeting interview, Ardis said he believed his complaint was handled no differently than anybody else’s would be. He said he didn’t orchestrate the police investigation, nor the search-warrant process.

“That’s a heck of a lot more power than any mayor I know,” Ardis said.

“My guess is as far as the judge is concerned, it doesn’t matter if it’s the mayor. They’re looking at the substance. Why would they allow something without a foundation? That’s the core of everything they do.”

Ardis said the situation provides an opportunity to discuss the proper limits of commentary on social media. He also said the news media is responsible, in part, for the problem.

“You’re the ones responsible for getting full information, but not to spin it in the way you want to spin it,” Ardis said to a Journal Star reporter. “To make us look stupid.

“It’s your responsibility to put actual information out there and cover both sides. Not to opine. And that didn’t happen. Clearly, that didn’t happen.”

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Jim Ardis and the Abuse of Power

PEORIA — Police searched a West Bluff house Tuesday and seized phones and computers in an effort to unmask the author of a parody Twitter account that purported to be Mayor Jim Ardis.

[…]

Three people at the home were taken to the Peoria Police Department for questioning. Two other residents were picked up at their places of employment and taken to the station, as well.

The Peoria police chief appears to be kind of a dim bulb as well:

Peoria Police Chief Steve Settingsgaard said officers were investigating the creator of the Twitter account for false impersonation of a public official. The offense is a Class A misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $2,500 and up to a year in jail.

[…]

The content of tweets, or entries on the account, ranged from ambiguous to offensive, with repeat references to sex and drugs — and comparisons of Ardis to Toronto Mayor Rob Ford as Ford’s drug use while in office became public.

By about March 10, the bio of the Twitter account was changed to indicate it was a parody account.

Settingsgaard, however, said the intent of the account was not clearly satirical.

Needless to say, there are now a lot more Peoria parody accounts.

More about this incident from Justin Glawe at Vice.

(Hat tip: Hit & Run)

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at You Know Your Mayor Is a Whiny Little Bitch When…

Because I hate unsearchable text in images, let me repeat that:

“It’s interesting Ted Cruz is off to pay respect to the 1st South African black president & yet shows such a profound lack of respect for his own.”

— Lizz Winstead

Quick question for Lizz (and Steve Marmel, where I found this): Did you really mean to complain that Ted Cruz isn’t judging presidents by the color of their skin?

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at How Should Ted Cruz Judge People?

I have recently started a blog and would like to cross pol­li­nate with peo­ple such we your­self who obvi­ously see the world the same as I do.  So I’d like to start by re-printing your blog with your per­mis­sion, and to have a lit­tle “about the author” at the end.

Mark Bennett’s response was blunt, but full of good advice:

No.

Who is advis­ing you on this “cross-pollinating” thing? Because the way to do it is not to reprint other people’s stuff. It’s to join the con­ver­sa­tion. Com­ment on other people’s blogs, dis­agree with them, write your own blog posts with links to their stuff.

This is work.

James sent back this response:

I have to say I’m a lit­tle sur­prised by this angry response, as the goal of my blog is to get impor­tant infor­ma­tion out there, whomever writes it, with attri­bu­tion —

Stop right there, James. If you really wanted to get important information out there, whoever writes it, with attribution, all you have to do is something like this:

Robb Fickman has a great guest post at Mark Bennett’s Defending People about prosecutor Ken Anderson’s ridiculously short sentence for wrongfully sending Michael Morton to jail for 25 years. I think they should have at least forced him to make a public admission of what he did.

There you go: Attribution, a short comment, and getting important information out there in just a couple of sentences.

James, you’re on the friggin’ World Wide Web. It’s been around for over twenty years, and an entire generation has grown up with it. At the base level, everyone knows how it works. In particular, everyone knows how to follow links. So if all you really want is “to get important information out there,” then all you need to do is link to it.

No, the reason you want to copy entire articles from other people into your blog (and I see you do that a lot) has nothing to do with getting important information out there. You just want to fill your blog with content about current events to attract readers and search engines, but you don’t want to do the hard work of writing it yourself.

That’s not very sporting, and it’s not going to work very well, because everybody already knows that trick.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Getting Important Information Out There

Marmel’s contribution is these parts:

Ginning up hate against the TSA and the government has consequences.

Thanks, Tea Party. This blood is on your hands.

Fuck you, Steve.

I’m not in the Tea Party (whatever that is these days), but I do believe the TSA routinely violates our rights, and that internal checkpoints are a hallmark of an authoritarian state. I would like to see the TSA disbanded, especially the fucking VIPR teams. But that doesn’t mean I take any pleasure from an agent getting shot. I’ve never advocated violence against the TSA, and I don’t think you’ll find any actual Tea Party leaders who did, either.

The shooter sounds like an angry, evil little prick, and unless someone turns up real evidence of a conspiracy, he’s the only one to blame. Don’t try to pin this on those of us who speak out against the excesses of the TSA and the government in general. We’re not responsible for how crazy people react to what we say.

There’s no contradiction in saying that this shooting of a TSA agent is a tragedy and that the TSA is still a bunch of douchebags who trample our freedom.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Don’t Blame the TSA Shooting on TSA Critics

Well, yeah, we probably would declare the aliens persons and give them money if they also

• Generated all the energy we consume.
• Manufactured all the medical devices that save our lives.
• Grew all the food we eat.
• Designed and manufactured all the clothes we like to wear.
• Created a nationwide wireless phone network that allows us to stay in contact with friends and family at all times.
• Produced all the pharmaceuticals that keep us healthy.
• Manufactured all the appliances that make our lives easier.
• Built all the cars we drive.
• Published all the books we read.
• Manufactured all the toys our children love to play with.
• Ran all the major sporting events we love to watch.
• Built all the buildings we live and work in.
• Manufactured all the furniture for those buildings.
• Delivered all this great stuff to convenient locations near where we live.
• Provided television and the internet.
• Produced all the movies we enjoy.
• Hosted all the blogs we read.

With a few psychopathic exceptions, nobody — natural person or legal corporation — damages the environment just for the sake of doing damage. Problems such as pollution and deforestation are either side effects or part of the direct cost of processes that make people’s lives better. Maybe the cost is too high — that’s a legitimate and important subject for debate — but it’s foolish to lament the costs while ignoring the benefits.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at If Aliens Came…

In a speech to the ABA about a month ago, the Attorney General denounced the criminal justice system as “ineffective,” and  —  pointedly ignoring the well-being of the huge majority of ordinary citizens  —  concentrated instead on how well (or poorly, in his view) we’re treating the tiny minority who wind up in prison because they want to make a fast buck dealing heroin, meth, cocaine, and other illegal and dangerous drugs.

Of course, they were only dealing those drugs to people who wanted to buy them, which means they weren’t actually harming anyone. Otis was complaining about increasing debts earlier in the piece, but apparently he doesn’t mind wasting money to imprison people for victimless crimes.

But I digress.

Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, the push to return to the Sixties’ and Seventies’ disastrous means for dealing with crime takes root in more than just ignorance of the past. It takes root in more than complacency, too.  It takes root specifically in lying. Thus, when the Attorney General told us that our current criminal justice system is “ineffective” (his word), he was lying.  There’s no other candid way to put it.

I’m not sure that “ineffective” is the word I would use, either. Other words come to mind: Indiscriminate, cruel, callous, disproportionate, arbitrary, elitist, profitable, deadly, harsh, disrespectful, unprincipled… Anyway, here’s the part that got my attention (emphasis mine):

Here’s the truth.  In the last generation, the crime rate is down by half.  The murder rate is down by more than half.  According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, we have more than 4,000,000 fewer crimes per year now than we did 20 years ago. Crime is at levels not seen  since the Baby Boomers were in grade school.  At the same time, protections for criminal defendants have vastly increased, and are now more numerous and refined than at any time in the country’s history.

Now who’s lying? I mean that’s just nonsense. Heck, Crime and Consequences celebrates every time protections are eliminated.

The craziness continues:

The Attorney General’s notion that this state of affairs shows an “ineffective” criminal justice system is absurd.  But it’s a needed absurdity  —  needed as the predicate to help him and like-minded people bring corrosion to one part of our culture that, up to now, anyway, has mostly escaped it:  Our still at least partly disciplined system for dealing with crime.

You mean the system that permits no-knock raids, flash-bang grenades, sobriety checkpoints, Terry stops, arrest quotas, pepper-spraying peaceful protesters, and piracy in the form of civil forfeiture? That disciplined system? Spoken like someone who’s used to being the man…

One of the things we have achieved to a remarkable extent is Franklin Roosevelt’s freedom from fear.

Unless, of course, you have some reason to fear the police. Which brings me back to Radley’s book…

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at In Which Bill Otis Laments That We’re So Soft On Crime

From Facebook:

Yes, I realize this is not technically bullying. It’s more like wheedling or nagging or whining. But I thought the message and the following exhortation were oddly in conflict: Be nice to other people…but if you don’t re-post this then you’re a douchebag.

This one is even weirder:

It’s got the same kind of message that is contradicted by the exhortation to re-post: Repeat my post about not making assumptions about people…but you probably don’t care about bullying.

Also, aside from being overly dramatic, this one really misses the point about bullying. The reason you shouldn’t bully people is because bullying is hurtful, not because you might be wrong on the facts. I mean, doesn’t this message imply that it’s okay to call a girl a slut if she’s not a virgin? And you can make fun of pregnant girls as long as they weren’t raped, and fat girls as long as they’re not trying to lose weight? And go ahead and jeer at old men with scars, unless of course they’re veterans. And unless that crying boy has had a death in the family, you can call him a crybaby. So don’t bully people unless, you know, you’ve made sure they deserve it.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Strange Anti-Bullying Messages

Nineteen-year-old Pullman, Washington, resident Andrew Cain took his own life on Saturday. Now his sister, Alise Smith, is asking for an apology from the local police department who allegedly cyber-bullied the young man just days before his death.

Cain was reportedly wanted for controlled substance charges and failure to appear in court. According to local media, a Latah County, Idaho, Sheriff’s Office deputy assigned to Cain’s case posted a photo of the teenager on the Sheriff’s Office Facebook page, along with this message:

“We have decided that Andrew Cain is no longer the Wanted Person of the Week… he is the Wanted Person of the Month of June. Congratulations!”

Andrew Cain’s decision to kill himself was his own choice, as his sister points out elsewhere, but I just don’t think the police have an organizational culture that’s going to be effective at deterring bullying.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Another Sign That the Anti-Bullying Police Force Might Not Work Out

As far as I know, most anti-bullying laws — even with the current level of moral panic — are directed at forcing school districts to adopt specific disciplinary policies designed to discourage bullying. But in Monona, they’ve made bullying a matter of criminal law. Because, you know, when it comes to putting an end to bullying, the most obvious people to do the job are cops.

(Hat tip: Scott Greenfield)

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Bullys Beware!

So now today I read that Chris Crane, president of the ICE employees’ union, wants its agents to have even more power.

[T]he National ICE Council 118, which represents agents in the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration enforcement wing, is demanding broader latitude to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants.

You know, I don’t like it when unions tell businesses how to operate — when they don’t allow truck drivers to help unload trucks, or conference hall exhibitors to set up their own exhibits — but that sort of thing pales in comparison to my hatred for law enforcement agencies that tell us what our laws should be.

Crane highlighted limited authority to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants as one of the biggest contributors to low morale. In particular, he singled out the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which grants tens of thousands of young immigrants a temporary reprieve from deportation.

Said Crane, “News has spread quickly through illegal alien populations within jails and communities that immigration agents have been instructed by the agency not to investigate illegal aliens who claim protections from immigration arrest under DACA.” Additionally, he bemoaned the fact that current policy prohibits ICE from prosecuting individuals for illegal entry or overstaying a visa unless they had also been convicted for criminal misdemeanors.

So your fakey police job turns out not to allow you to be as aggressive as you’d hoped? Boo fuckin’ hoo. If you don’t like it, quit.

The result, suggested Crane, was widespread “low morale” among ICE agents, which he implied may have contributed to “the tragic shooting in a Los Angeles ICE office last year, in which an ICE Agent shot his own supervisor and was himself shot and killed by another ICE employee.”

Let me get this straight. Crane’s people are shooting each other, and he thinks that’s a great argument for giving them even more power and responsibility?

God, what a whiny little shit. I mean, what kind of psychopathic fuck whines about how his feelings are hurt because he can’t throw enough people in jail?

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at ICE Agents Got That Can’t-Throw-People-In-Jail Blues

Here’s a question that will blow your mind: What if he’d said “Zap!”? What then, huh? Is shooting someone with a finger ray gun a lesser crime than shooting someone with a finger firearm because the pretend gun uses pretend technology? Or is it a greater crime because if ray gun technology existed it would be even more dangerous? I urge the Montgomery County school board to address this issue immediately!

When I was in high school, a bunch of us would do this thing where whenever we ran into each other we’d point and say “zap”. Just a silly thing we did. One of the teachers even joined in sometimes. Then again, he was the irresponsible child-endangerer who also sometimes borrowed my Swiss Army knife instead of having me arrested for it. It was the 80’s, people were irresponsible that way.

That’s right, I carried a blade in school, because I was badass.

(Hat tip: Jack Marshall)

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Pow!

Dear Wayne,

I just received your letter of July 18, 2011 inviting me to your upcoming American Values Leadership Forum at the end of September. I must say, the guest list looks like a conservative all-star lineup — Michele Bachmann, Haley Barbour, John Boehner, John Bolton, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Oliver North, Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney — although, as a libertarian, I was disappointed to see you did not include Ron Paul. I guess he would have freaked the traditionals, huh?

By the way, I can’t help notice you call them all “invited speakers,” as if some of them haven’t actually agreed to appear. I sure hope that’s not the case, otherwise people might think you’re padding the list to make yourselves look important. Ha, ha.

My reason for writing is to let you know about a matter of incompetence among your staff that reflects badly on the NRA and on you personally. You see, I was pretty excited that you, the Executive Vice President and CEO of the NRA, wrote to me personally to say, “I’m extending to you this invitation to be my personal guest at NRA’s 2012 American Values Leadership Forum.” So you can imagine my surprise that your letter was accompanied by an “Official R.S.V.P.” that in included a list of ticket prices ranging from $125 all the way up to $1000!

I know! Right? You’re a sophisticated Washington insider, a power broker representing millions of NRA members. There’s no way you’d commit the serious etiquette breach of inviting someone to attend a gathering as a personal guest and then expect them to pay to be there. You need to look into this, because someone in your mail room is making you look like a total ass.

I just thought you should know.

In any case, as I am starting a new job and it would be imprudent to take the time off, I regret I must decline your kind invitation.

Sincerely,

Mark Draughn

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at A Brief Note to Wayne LaPierre

The family was going through security when two TSA agents singled Drew Mandy out for a special pat down. Drew is severely mentally disabled. He’s 29, but his parents said he has the mental capacity of a two-year-old, which made the experience that followed at metro Detroit’s McNamera Terminal that much harder to deal with.

“You have got to be kidding me. I honestly felt that those two agents did not know what they were doing,” Mandy told us.

Dr. Mandy claimed they asked Drew to place his feet on the yellow shoe line, something he didn’t understand. They proceeded to pat his pants down, questioning the padding which was his adult diapers. When the agents asked Drew to take his hand and rub the front and back of his pants so they could swab it for explosives, his dad stepped in and tried to explain that Drew was mentally challenged.

“They said, ‘Please, sir, we know what we’re doing,'” Mandy said.

The TSA agents saw Drew holding a six-inch plastic hammer.

“My son carries his ball and his hammer for security. He goes everywhere with (them),” said Mandy.

The TSA it seems saw the toy as a weapon.

“He took the hammer and he tapped the wall. ‘See, it’s hard. It could be used as a weapon,'” Mandy explained.

So the TSA took the toy hammer away. Because they’re assholes.

A little over four years ago, a gunman entered a building on the Virginia Tech campus and started shooting. By the time it was over, he had killed 32 people. After the fact, a lot of pundits said stupid things (e.g. blaming it on video games or the gays), but probably the worst comment was from John Derbyshire:

As NRO’s designated chickenhawk, let me be the one to ask: Where was the spirit of self-defense here? Setting aside the ludicrous campus ban on licensed conceals, why didn’t anyone rush the guy? It’s not like this was Rambo, hosing the place down with automatic weapons. He had two handguns for goodness’ sake-one of them reportedly a .22.  At the very least, count the shots and jump him reloading or changing hands. Better yet, just jump him. Handguns aren’t very accurate, even at close range. I shoot mine all the time at the range, and I still can’t hit squat. I doubt this guy was any better than I am. And even if hit, a .22 needs to find something important to do real damage-your chances aren’t bad.

At the time, I went into a great bit of detail about why this kind of thinking is wrong-headed, but it basically boils down to the fact that people in general aren’t very good at responding to unusual situations under stress.

About a year later, a bunch of pundits got upset about a 78-year-old man who was supposedly hit by a car and left lying in the street as people walked by. It was apparently a great opportunity to decry the moral poverty of our society, and again I explained why they were overreacting.

I can’t say for sure why people at the scene did what they did, but I think we should cut them some slack for the inability of this crowd of strangers to quickly organize a response to an unusual and frightening situation.

Maybe it’s because I’ve spent so much time wrangling computers for busy executives, university professors, and engineers, but I’m not surprised or disappointed when very smart people have trouble figuring out what to do in novel and complex situations. And I’ve done enough reading about how people respond to crises to know that stress only makes it worse.

Now some people are criticising Dr. Mandy for his handling of the TSA agents who mistreated his mentally disabled son:

Whether it’s the parent of a mentally challenged young man, or the mother of a baby, at what point does a parent decide not to back away and acquiesce in the abuse of their child?  Apparently, the tipping point is when told to do so by anyone wearing the uniform of a government agent. 

No doubt Dr. Mandy, an osteopath specializing in pediatrics per a quick search, has spent a good part of his life helping his son to enjoy life as best possible.  He likely a wonderful, caring father who has shown love and devotion to Drew, and that’s great.

But some parents would rather take a bullet between their eyes than allow anyone to do harm to their child.  This situation hadn’t escalated to the point where bullets were in the offing, and yet Dr. Mandy complied with the instructions of his TSA handlers.  Was there something about them to suggest they really did know what they were doing?  It’s hard to believe.

So why did he just back off and let the TSA do as they pleased?  Where is the outrage?  Where is the will to tell the blue-shirted monkeys that they don’t have the first clue what they’re doing, that they are doing pointless harm to your child and that you are not going to be compliant sheep?

First of all, Dr. Mandy’s a mature, accomplished individual. He’s wealthy and white. This sort of treatment is probably a bit unusual, and he wasn’t prepared for it.

Second, beyond explaining his son’s problems to them, what would arguing have accomplished? Yelling at people always feels good, but could he have changed the TSA goon’s mind? Gotten him to stop annoying his son? I doubt it.

Third, those TSA people are sort-of cops, but they’re the worst kind of cops: A cop with very little power except for one specific area. That you happen to be in. Anyone who’s run into a self-important mall cop knows what I mean. Escalating the situation could lead to the family being separated for questioning. Worse, if the father got himself arrested, Drew could have been tossed into some sort of state welfare system until he got out. (Or, since we’re talking about the TSA, he could have been left to wander the airport, which might actually be safer.)

Years ago, I read a story by a tough-sounding criminal defense lawyer who got stopped on the highway by a cop who wanted to search the car. He knew he didn’t have to let him, but he let the cop do the search anyway because the cost of a confrontation would be too high. You see, the lawyer had his dog in the car. If he got arrested, he was afraid of what would happen to his dog while he was locked up. How much more concerned do you suppose Dr. Mandy was for his son?

I’ve told my children that my love for them is such that I would jump in front of speeding bullet to protect them.  There have been moments when I’m put to the test, fortunately not a speeding bullet but a time when I am faced with the decision to either stand up and protect them at my own risk, or snivel and justify why I backed away.  I’ve made my choice. How any parent could back down is unfathomable to me.

Eh, the TSA goons were annoying his son, and they took away one of his toys. Maybe his father should have put on a symbolic show of resistance, but he only had a few seconds to make up his mind, and this is what he did.

And then he got the TSA to apologize and change their training, and the whole stupid incident was turned into a three-minute news segment that’s getting attention all over the internet. It’s quite possible that mentally challenged air passengers will be treated better as a result. It’s not exactly a bad result.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at In Which the TSA Picks on Someone Smarter Than They Are

1. Immediate Wall-to-Wall TV Ads, Internet Videos, and Appearances Hammering Who the Hell Put Us in the Misery We’re In.

That would be George Bush and the Republicans…and Barack Obama and the Democrats. The Democrats, including Senator Obama, weren’t exactly shut out of Congress for the last six years or so. And if Obama and the Democratic Congress had focused on straightening out the economy instead of grandstanding on healthcare and paying off their union buddies in the auto and education industries, we’d probably be doing a lot better by now.

2. Indict the Criminals.

Announce that the Justice Department will seek indictments against both those who caused the economic collapse and those who became war profiteers. Call it for what it is: organized crime.

I agree in principle–although I don’t think very much of the economic collapse was due to out-and-out crime–but good luck with that. Your man Obama has adopted a let’s-not-dwell-on-the-past approach when dealing with crimes committed under the Bush administration. But that didn’t stop his Justice Department from indicting some guy who blew the whistle on the previous administration. Oh, no, wouldn’t want to encourage any more of that kind of thing.

3. Announce a Moratorium on All Family Home Foreclosures.

Eh. Losing your home has got to suck. A lot. But you know what else has got to suck? Wanting to buy a home and not being able to afford a nice one because thousands of homes are being held off the market by people who aren’t making payments on them.

I suspect there’s probably some sort of everybody-wins compromise here that no one in the government will ever consider. If we really aren’t going to let the perfectly legal foreclosures go through, maybe we could set up some kind of fast-track owner-to-renter transition. Ownership of the homes would transfer to whoever could afford to buy them at whatever the price the bank was willing to sell them, but the current occupants would get to stay for a while as renters for, say, three years. This would clear up the mortgage logjam and maybe shift housing prices down into reasonable territory while still limiting disruption to families.

I don’t know, that probably wouldn’t work, but there’s got to be something better than just robbing the banks.

4. Announce a New 21st Century WPA.

Oh God no. We don’t need more government employees.

“Who’s hiring? THE GOVERNMENT IS HIRING!” Put together a simple plan to hire enough people to repair our roads, fix up our aging schools, and rebuild our infrastructure. Fund this by taxing the richest 1% who have more financial wealth than 95% of Americans combined! Unemployment will drop to 5%.

Only if the Bureau of Labor Statistics is allowed to pull numbers out of their ass like Michael just did.

5. Declare That No Democrat Will Accept ANY Wall Street Money in the Next Election Cycle.

Pick a day in the coming week. Have all your fellow Democrats in Congress stand in front of the Capitol (with President Obama) and pledge that if America allows you to retain control of Congress, none of you will take a penny from Wall Street for the 2012 election. Instead, promise to accept donations of only $2, $5 and $10. You will also pledge not to take a job as a lobbyist or lawyer for ANY corporation for ten years after you leave Congress.

Expand that pledge to include unions and government agencies at all levels, and you just might have something, but…

The message will be a powerful one to the average American fed up with corrupt political hacks.

Oh, yes, Congress may be filled with corrupt political hacks, but I’m sure they’ll shape up if they just make a fucking pledge! This won’t do any good unless it has the power of law, and since Congress makes all the laws, even that won’t do any good.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Five Half-Assed Ideas From Michael Moore

Start with Joseph Cassilly, a prosecutor in Hartford County, Maryland:

“The officer having his gun drawn or being on a public roadway has nothing to do with it,” Cassilly says. “Neither does the fact that what Mr. Graber said during the stop could be used in court. That’s not the test. The test is whether police officers can expect some of the conversations they have while on the job to remain private and not be recorded and replayed for the world to hear.”

In the Graber case, he was making a helmet cam video while riding on his motorcycle when a motorist cut him off and jumped out waving a gun. This crazy motorist turned out to be Maryland State Trooper Joseph David Ulher, driving an unmarked car and dressed nothing like a cop. This was all caught on the helmet cam.

Now Cassilly is prosecuting Graber for violating the wiretapping laws. Apparently, Cassilly thinks a cop somehow has a right to privacy even when he intrusively inserts himself into a video that started recording before he got there.

The second badgelicker is right here in Illinois. Here’s the background:

Crawford County State’s Attorney Tom Wiseman is currently bringing five felony charges against Michael Allison, a 41-year-old construction worker who recorded police officers and other public officials he thought were harassing him.

Now here comes the crazy:

“The only person doing any harassing here is Mr. Allison, who was harassing our public officials with his tape recorder,” Wiseman says. “They may have problems with some bad police officers in some of your urban areas. But we don’t have those problems around here. All of our cops around here are good cops. This is a small town. Everyone knows everyone. If we had a bad police officer here, we’d know about it, I’d know about it, and he’d be out. There’s just no reason for anyone to feel they need to record police officers in Crawford County.”

You say something as stupid as “we don’t have those problems around here. All of our cops around here are good cops,” and you expect us to just take your word for it? And obviously there was a reason for someone to “feel they need to record police officers in Crawford County,” because somebody did. That feeling may not be justified, but without the recording, how would anybody know?

The king of the badgelickers is Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police. His job is to stand up for the cops regardless of whether they’re right or wrong, so he says the stupidest things by far:

Pasco, who supports these arrests, says he’s worried that video could be manipulated to make police officers look bad. “There’s no chain of custody with these videos,” Pasco says. “How do you know the video hasn’t been edited? How do we know what’s in the video hasn’t been taken out of context?

When a witness testifies that the defendant assaulted him, how do we know he’s not lying? I think this is one of the reasons we have trials and lawyers and judges and juries, to figure out these kinds of things.

With dashboard cameras or police security video, the evidence is in the hands of law enforcement the entire time, so it’s admissible under the rules of evidence. That’s not the case with these cell phone videos.”

Really? So if I witnessed, say, three gang members beating down a cop on a subway platform and I recorded it on my cellphone, I could testify to what I saw, but the video would be totally useless to the prosecutor? No one has ever made a case off an unofficial video? How stupid does Pasco think we are?

But what about cases where video clearly contradicts police reports, such as the McKenna case in College Park?

“You have 960,000 police officers in this country, and millions of contacts between those officers and citizens. I’ll bet you can’t name 10 incidents where a citizen video has shown a police officer to have lied on a police report,”

And if it’s illegal to make videos of police on the job, we’ll never be able to.

(Actually, I’m pretty sure I could just search The Agitator and Simple Justice for the word “video” and come up a lot more than 10 incidents.)

“Letting people record police officers is an extreme and intrusive response to a problem that’s so rare it might as well not exist. It would be like saying we should do away with DNA evidence because there’s a one in a billion chance that it could be wrong.”

Uh, the malfeasance rate among cops is a lot higher than 1-in-a-billion. Just here in Chicago, we’ve had cops taking bribes, cops robbing stores, cops running hookers, cops working for street gangs, cops running jewelry theft rings, and cops killing people for money. On average, seven Chicago police officers each year are prosecuted for crimes. Are we supposed to believe that these guys wouldn’t fudge their reports?

Heck, my last traffic ticket, the cop changed his story between the time he stopped me and the time he testified in court. It was probably an honest mistake, but if I’d been rolling video, he wouldn’t have gotten away with it. Video doesn’t just catch lying cops. It also catches honest mistakes and keeps them from corrupting the justice system.

“At some point, we have to put some faith and trust in our authority figures.”

Yes, at some point we do, but why rely on faith and trust in the kinds of situations where we can have evidence? 

I mention Michael Allison’s case to Pasco, and ask if he supports the Illinois law.

“I don’t know anything about that case, but generally it sounds like a sensible law and a sensible punishment,” Pasco says. “Police officers don’t check their civil rights at the station house door.”

Maybe not, but there is no right to privacy in a public place. That’s why it’s called “public.”

We’re talking about the right of ordinary citizens to make video recordings in a public place. In general, if you or I are out on the street and we discover someone is making a video of us, there’s nothing we can do about it. Anybody can roll video at any time as long as they’re not trespassing. How do you think all those celebrity gossip shows get videos of Lindsay Lohan behaving scandalously? How do you think 60-minutes can do ambush interviews?

Finally, isn’t it ironic to hear cops and badgelickers talking about other people being “intrusive”? These are the guys whose job it is to butt into everyone else’s business. They pull cars over in traffic and ask the driver for identification. They detain random people on the street and pat them down for weapons. It’s more-or-less what we pay them for, but I have no sympathy for their complaints when it’s their turn.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Three Badgelickers Explain Why You Shouldn’t Make Videos of Cops

I am not trying to deceive you into thinking I am an agent or representative of the FBI, nor am I trying to assert any authority, FBI-like or otherwise. No matter what those goofballs at the FBI think.

(Hat tip: Popehat, Gideon, Mark Bennett, Jeff Gamso, and Scott Greenfield)

P.S. You can tell I’m not an FBI agent because in my picture I don’t look like one. This is what an FBI agent looks like:

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at I Am Not An FBI Agent

Dear Anne,

Congratulations on your wedding day. I wish you and Robert all the best.

Kind regards,

Andrew

Would that have been so fucking hard?

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at A Pleasant Alternative to the Things Unsaid

(The story follows a short commercial.)

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Of Whores and Holes

Finally, we should never forget what drove the bombers, and how they justified their actions to themselves. They took to the ultimate extreme an idea advocated in the months and years before the bombing by an increasingly vocal minority: the belief that the greatest threat to American freedom is our government, and that public servants do not protect our freedoms, but abuse them.

Clinton is, as usual, being careful with his words. He never quite comes out and accuses the “increasingly vocal minority” of causing the Oklahome City bombing, but there’s a clear implication that those of us who question big government are somehow culpable.

As we exercise the right to advocate our views, and as we animate our supporters, we must all assume responsibility for our words and actions before they enter a vast echo chamber and reach those both serious and delirious, connected and unhinged.

No. That’s dead wrong.

I assume responsibility for what I say and what I do. But my words have no power to compel other people, so I’m not responsible for what other people do upon hearing them. And I’m certainly not going to assume responsibility for what happens when my words reach the “delirious” and the “unhinged.” It would be foolish for Americans to censor their own voices in our democracy out of fear of how some unknown madman might respond.

Civic virtue can include harsh criticism, protest, even civil disobedience. But not violence or its advocacy. That is the bright line that protects our freedom. It has held for a long time, since President George Washington called out 13,000 troops in response to the Whiskey Rebellion.

Would that be the same George Washington who just a few years before had lead the armed insurrection against the British government? An insurrection which started, on this very day, in 1775 when local militia members killed 73 British soldiers in the battles of Lexington and Concord?

It’s assinine for someone like Bill Clinton, who for eight years commanded the most powerful army in the world, to say that violence has no place in civic virtue. If violence can never be virtuous, then why do we have a Department of Defense? Why do we arm our police officers? Why does our government have within its grasp, the power to kill millions with the push of a button?

The answer is that although violence is terrible, it is sometimes also the only way to protect ourselves against those who would do violence against us. In our civilized world, we have agreed to limit the use of violence, wherever possible, by empowering a democratic government to act violently against those who threaten us. This near-monopoly on the use of violence is the defining characteristic of government. George Washington understood this well:

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.

Which is precisely why our government is the single greatest threat to our freedom. What other threats could there be? The Russians? The Chinese? North Korea? Criminal gangs? Deceitful bankers? None of those threats compare to the harm that could come if those who should serve us try instead to become our masters.

Back to Clinton:

Fifteen years ago, the line was crossed in Oklahoma City. In the current climate, with so many threats against the president, members of Congress and other public servants, we owe it to the victims of Oklahoma City, and those who survived and responded so bravely, not to cross it again.

No problem. I’m just a blogger. All I’ve got are words. I have no blood on my hands.

Bill Clinton cannot say the same. It was his administration that sent the ATF into the Branch Davidian compound to start a violent confrontation where none existed before. He commanded the army that killed a thousand people in Mogadishu in 1993. He launched cruise missles into Afghanistan and the Sudan.

Whether you believe Clinton was right or wrong to use force when he did, it’s absurd that a man who has held the power to kill and used it should try to cast blame on those of us who only use words.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at A Warning From a Violent Man

Actually, Radley’s not all that awesome, it just that his opponent at the Republican Liberty Caucus of Illinois is incredibly stupid. He accuses Radley of padding his resume by falsely claiming to be a biweekly columnist for Forbes.com, and then demonstrates that a search shows only two of Radleys columns.

The problem is that Radley doesn’t claim he’s a biweekly columnist for Forbes, he’s a biweekly columnist for FoxNews.com.

Well, the folks at the RLCIL have changed their stupid post. (Radley still has screen shots of the old one.) Now they’re claiming they actually searched the foxnews.com site and found only three links for Radley’s columns. I tried it in Google myself, and I found four links, which is close enough, I guess.

However, I then spent another 30 fracking seconds poking around the Fox News site to get this complete index of all 50 of Radley Balko’s columns over the last two years. These idiots don’t even know how to navigate a web site!

Update: They’ve taken down the page, but Radley still has screen captures.

You know, when I look at the RLCIL’s “About” page, I like what I see. Supposedly, they support:

Lower and fewer taxes
The right to privacy
The right to keep and bear arms
Balanced budgets through spending cuts
Educational choice
Freedom of speech
Protection of property rights
Market-based health care
Alternatives to the drug war
All-volunteer armed forces
Term Limits
Sound monetary policies
Deregulation
Phase-out of foreign aid
Ending federal welfare
Private options to Social Security
Free trade Privatization of government functions

I agree with most of those things, and so does Radley, so I find the fight between them confusing. 

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Republican Liberty Caucus FAIL

MR. BROKAW: You met Vladimir Putin when he was just an aide to the mayor of St. Petersburg. …most people see not in his eyes a soulful person, but the eyes–three letters, as someone has put it: KGB. That he is…

MR. TURNER: Well, he had that background. But you know, we have an FBI and, and, and, and, and we’re not prejudice against somebody who’s worked at the FBI. It’s an honorable place to work. And the KGB, I think, was an honorable place to work. And it, it gave people in the former Soviet Union, a communist country, an opportunity to do something important and worthwhile.

What a clueless cretin. For all its problems, the FBI is nothing like the KGB. Not even close. Lubyanka Prison made Gitmo look like Club Med.

(Hat tip: Kip)

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at “An honorable place to work”

Because the laws are written by grandstanding legislators, and grandstanding legislators are often stupid and callous, and stupid, callous legislators are a much greater threat than some sex offenders.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at When is a Sex Offender not a Sex Offender?

The gun, a Gamo P-23, was sitting under the rear window of the 2004 coupe. Looking like a larger-caliber handgun, the firearm drew a quick response from the bicycle-patrol officer who stopped Narciso for doing 40 mph in a 25-mph zone. With gun drawn, the officer arrested him.

Granted, it was a little foolish of Narciso to keep a realistic-looking gun in his car where it would be visible through the window. Even if the cops didn’t spot it, there’s a good chance someone would try to steal it.

Still, a three-year prison term for illegal possession of a gun seems excessive. It’s not as if he was brandishing it, or even carrying it.

Also, did I mention it was an airgun? Since when are air-powered guns (pellet guns, BB-guns, etc,) considered firearms? When I was a kid, I used to shoot a pellet gun in my backyard in Chicago. Nobody cared. I guess nowadays the people who run our local governments are just pussies.

Based on the story, it seems unlikely that when the New Jersey legislature increased the penalties for unlawful gun possession, they intended to include airguns. This sort of inane law enforcement seems like a good scenario to use a little prosecutorial discretion…or jury nullification.

This post by Mark Draughn at Windypundit was originally published at Use a Pellet Gun, Go To Jail