The fedgov’s new attempt to ban tech speech about firearms appears to be an attempt to slap Defense Distributed for getting uppity. But attacks on free speech are getting more ominous — and sometimes more stupid — by the minute. Thank you, Ken White, for revealing this outrage. Another good commentary on the subpoena served on Reason. Intellectuals: Leviathan’s Praetorian Guard. Thanks to a recent WSJ editorial, the world seems to have awakened to the fact that social “science” is little more than an intellectual justification of liberalism. Big debate now going on. Cameron of The Passive Habit agrees, but…
Category: Free speech
Failing direct means, this is typical of how the ‘crat class will try to curtail firearms. And, of course, free speech. OTOH, sometimes in their zeal to control they squeeze so hard that … well, you know how that works. TSA: there’s just no excuse for the groping any more. Edward Snowden is cautiously optimistic. Man. Talk about fangrrl journalism. “Why Beau Biden’s death is devastating to the entire country.” How come nobody ever told Jesus that a $65 million jet was absolutely necessary to spread his word? So you already know that the FBI is creates most domestic terrorist…
PayPal wants to have a little robo-chat with you. (H/T MJR) This one’s weird. Turns out there could be a correlation — no known causation, but an enormous correlation — between using painkillers and committing homicide. Even ordinary OTC products like ibuprofen (Gotta be some anomaly in that study. Gotta be.) Don’t let the Wookie win when the Wookie is brute superstition. Sacred Rage. “It would be foolish indeed for a government that has lost a string of wars in “backward” foreign lands to think, even with its military and police power and surveillance apparatus, that it could suppress an…
“How Baltimore Became Pottersville.” Bovard riffs on the glories of HUD. Why Mozilla’s decision to attempt to push all sites from http to https
Another terrific one from Ken at Popehat. How to spot (and counter) covert advocacy of censorship. I’ve never downloaded anything from a torrent site. I’m against any form of piracy that deprives creators of the rewards they’ve earned. Still … The Pirate Bay has panache. The usual anti-gun and “hate group” suspects band together to promote ballots over bullets. Um, yeah. Good luck with those ballots when you’re being threatened by thug government. The liberation of Dachau and the righteous rage of the liberators. “Oh, my gold!” Yet another company tries to do what egold did. (The poster says BitGold…
Find a hidden treasure at auction. Give it back. You’re a better man than I. It’s a bad idea, but a provocative thought experiment. “What if, just for a change of pace, it was the opponents of free speech whose ideas were deemed hateful?” Though the lede is about investing in the new cannabis industry, the most fascinatingly weird part is about the work being done in laboratories to isolate (then market) product with specific properties. So we know birds came from dinosaurs. Now scientists have taken chicken embryos part of the way back. Honest, I thought it was The…
You know those famous electronic billboards in Times Square? LOL, the feds apparently demanded NYC take them all down. “Highway beautification,” you know. Then just that quickly, they denied making the demand. But turns out the signs are in violation of fedlaw. Governing highways. To paraphrase Kipling, “… if once you have paid him the taken his Dane-geld, you never get rid of the Dane.” Like Pamela Geller or loathe her, she has a point. One might wish the current crop of liberal authoritarians had as good a grasp on the meaning of free speech. Sigh. Didja ever think you’d…
I’m not sure why libraries are installing 3D printers. Implications could be intriguing. (H/T Pat) Ancient DNA is telling us we’ve been all mixed up much more than previously supposed. Garland, Paris, Charlie Hebdo and dangerous myths. Well done. Garry Trudeau should be ashamed. The question Joss Whedon keeps asking. (I’m not sure that’s the question at all; interesting article anyhow.) Overkill on medical testing and procedures. When I saw the headline I suspected another creepy Emanuelesque justification of diminishing medical care. This is the genuine good stuff, though. She suffered through cancer. Then she designed the cards she would…
“‘Safe Spaces’ and the Mote in America’s Eye.” For some time I’ve been mean to university students who feel entitled to a “safe space” — by which they seem to mean a space where they are insulated from ideas they don’t like. I call these young people out for valuing illusory and subjective safety over liberty. I accuse them of accepting that speech is “harmful” without logic or proof. I mock them for not grasping that universities are supposed to be places of open inquiry. I condemn them for not being critical about the difference between nasty speech and nasty…
Been feeling distracted and tired lately. Concerned about money. Not “OMG, how will I keep the lights on?” money issues. More like “How do I juggle all this?” It’s temporary (vehicle repairs, taxes) and I’m not asking anything from anybody. Everything is fine. Just know that right now I feel muzzy-headed, unclear on many of life’s little details, as if I want to crawl back in bed by 9:00 a.m., and for some reason also ravenous for protein. Preferably protein saturated in honey and brown sugar (so it’s a good thing I made beef jerky the other day, yes?)
Anyhow, I don’t have much for you right now, so I thought I’d just share a little email exchange from the weekend. It’s the kind of communication that should make you glad you didn’t opt for a career as a freelance writer.
Background: I wrote a S.W.A.T. magazine article asking, “Do we have a right to rebellion?” The article isn’t online, but basically I was answering that statist eejit Paul Begala’s multi-idiocy remarks from earlier this year. Then some “expert” answered me.
Before I get to the exchange itself, I’ll acknowledge that, yes, I’m well aware that some readers here deny that any such things as rights exist. Consider your point to be noted in advance. We have a right to differ. 🙂 But my position in the article was that we damn well do have a right to rebellion, Mr. Begala to the contrary.
For the rest of you who consider discussions of the nature of rights meaningful, on to the exchange.