A blog reader, M.B., writes in....

Recently I had the opportunity to witness first-hand what happens when you give government too much power, and I'd like to share a story with you so that you can better understand the depth of the problem, and why a reliance on one person, group or party over another will only continue to destroy our freedoms. (In the interest of freedom and privacy, I would ask that if you forward this to friends and family, that you delete my personal info attached to it.)

I was sitting in a local coffee shop recently, spending time catching up on emails and surfing the web, when I began to notice a habit of local law enforcement who would come into the establishment, and eye each person who would walk in the front door, appearing to be making notes on their department furnished laptops.

This was not just for a few minutes and then leave, but for hours at a time, and also included watching those who are casually enjoying themselves from within the establishment. No alcohol being served. No fights breaking out. No lewd conduct by coffee-sipping patrons, most of whom are students and entrepreneurs. In fact, the cops never even bother to obtain permission from the cafe's owner.

Some of you might say, "Well, they're just doing their job" or "they're probably off-duty," or "maybe you're just being paranoid or too thin-skinned."

About a year ago I moved to Austin from Chicago. In addition to all of the things that you're probably aware of that goes on in the Windy City, I witnessed this same conduct by local law enforcement in coffee shops there, and it annoyed me to no end. After many weeks of watching this same type of behavior [in Chicago] and becoming increasingly annoyed when I lived there, I finally asked one of them what was going on with cops being so curious about people sipping coffee and enjoying their freedom to surf the web. And he told me: "the Patriot Act basically allows us to do whatever we want, including detaining you for up to 72 hours if we feel like it--we can search your belongings, we can scan the hard drive of your laptop--there's really nothing that you can do about it."

And he was correct.

The general problem and frustration that I'm expressing was my hope to enjoy greater freedom and prosperity by moving to the Lone Star State. And to some degree that has happened. But now I'm being continually reminded once again, through daily visits to a coffee shop, that we are not free, and that it may be only a matter of time before our local law enforcement agencies become federalized, if they haven't already.

If you think that sounds paranoid--you're right. And I have every reason to be. The police no longer need probable cause to detain you.

Gordon writes via email to correct my science on yesterday's post:



...to which I can only say, damn, he's right: in the enlarged view, that does look like it might be a Fresnel mirror, which would contribute to the focusing of the beam. So the advertised beam size may be true. And the auto-focus is plausible, too, though with the problems Gordon describes.

My objections remain, but I don't want to mis-state the science. I stand corrected, with thanks.

From Unqualified Offerings I learn that the millimeter-wave "heat ray," which I dubbed the "cornea cooker" for its ability to cause eye damage, is now going to be used by the L.A. County Sheriff's Department to control "unruly inmates" in jail.

My bullshit alarm is already ringing:

1. "The beam, which is about the diameter of a compact disc ... can be targeted very precisely, allowing deputies to single out one person or even a specific body part."

I'm skeptical of this because the photo of the unit shows a meter-wide reflector, which suggests a much wider beam. And that looks like a flat reflector, so it's not doing any focusing. Whatever microwave horn is doing the emitting at the front, I strongly doubt it has a beam divergence of zero degrees -- and if they can focus the beam, that focus is going to depend on the range to the target, an adjustment I really don't see prison guards fiddling with during a riot.

2. "The machine is designed to emit a burst of no more than three seconds with each trigger pull"

Sure. And you don't think its video-game-trained users, with the IQ you'd expect in the Corrections Department, aren't going to go click-click-click-click-click as fast as they can pull the trigger? (Unlike a video game, they won't run out of ammo.) Just look at how many multiple-Taser incidents have occurred...and remember that prison guards are not particularly known for their kindness.

3. ""Millimeter wave" devices have been tested on more than 10,000 subjects so far and has been shown to cause no lasting injuries"

If by "lasting injuries" you mean "permanently crippled," and by "shown" to mean "shown so far in carefully controlled tests," that might be within driving distance of the truth. But the ACLU points out that when the military was testing this device,


And that was when the operators were trained, and their target was the good guys. The people who use this device will be using it to inflict pain -- the more, the better -- and they won't be too picky about who's on the receiving end, or the potential for injury. Somehow I think adjusting the beam focus, reducing the output power according to range, and limiting exposure to three seconds just won't be on their minds when they're blasting away.

The Free Life, August, 1898

A correspondent writes in to comment, "No one is mad enough to wish to put his political ideal into practice at once without reservations or deductions."

Auberon Herbert responds: Instead of ideal -- which is rather vague-- let us say principle. Don't we all wish to put what is to us a true principle into practice at once and to put an end at once to what is a wrong principle? If you are clear that State compulsory education, State restriction of drink, State insurance as regards accidents and old age, State regulation of labour hours, State compulsion as regards vaccination and certain other medical matters, are wrong -- why should you hesitate and fasten your eyes on another century instead of the present year?

Every great change brings its quota of pain and disturbance; no change is wholly for good; but if you thoroughly and strongly believe in the principle underlying the change, you will feel that the pain and disturbance count for very little in comparison with the good which results from moving in the right direction, instead of moving in the wrong direction. The whole matter, indeed, turns on whether you accept a principle, or whether you go on the pick-and-choose system. If, with us you accept liberty as a principle, as a moral right supreme above all political conveniences, if you agree that force is a wrong -- except to restrain force -- then you will not hesitate about doing away with force or compulsion the first moment that you can succeed in doing so. If next year, good; if to-morrow, better still. If, on the other hand, you reject principle, treat everything as an open question and are guided by the many conflicting expediencies of the moment, then...you must hold on your zig-zag course...and with such fortuitous inspiration as comes to you, fighting one day in the ranks of the compulsionists and another day in the ranks of those who give liberty the supreme place.

Nevertheless, though the difference must always be great between those who believe in Liberty as a matter of principle and those who believe in Liberty on grounds of expediency, and though sometimes they must be in conflict (e.g. on vaccination), yet let us hold out the hand of friendship to friends...whose faces are turned in the same direction as ourselves. I have great faith in the converting and attaching power of principle. Men fight for a cause, as they themselves believe, on the ground of expedience; but, before the battle is half over, you will find them using the same arguments as ourselves, and appealing to the great principles that underlie every human matter. You can hardly plead strongly for any vital cause without appealing to principle. In the stress of the conflict the differences between us will melt.

Hans Sherrer of the highly recommended organization Justice Denied writes in to share two items...

I stumbled across a review of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged (and Anthem and We the Living) by a 16-year-old girl on youtube.com. Although it is obvious she only has the perspective of a teenager, they are interesting, and she encourages other people to read Rand's books. It is encouraging to see a teenager who is thoughtful about "important" things. Her youtube name is: lavenderlynx. She reviewed Atlas Shrugged first (click here). Her review of The Fountainhead is here.

******

ABC' television program "What Would You Do" recently had a segment that affirmed Stanley Milgram's original experiments almost 50 years ago about how deferential people are to a person wearing the attire of an authority figure. (In Milgram's experiments the authority figure wore the white smock of a lab technician.).

The program has actors create a situation in a public place and then it records the reaction of the people who witness it. In one segment two actors dressed in the uniforms of airline pilots sitting at an airport bar and pretending to drink so much that they were getting drunk. The actors told the people in the bar that they were leaving on a flight in about an hour. Not a single person called airport authorities to report the drunken pilots! In fact, at least one person even bought the pilots more drinks! When psychology experts viewed the footage they said that people are conditioned to respect authority figures, and they tolerate behavior by a person in a uniform that they would not stand for in a casually dressed person -- even when it could endanger their life, such as a drunken pilot. See the webpage about the program,

George Mason University's History News Network in conjunction with Vote iQ offers an "extraordinary and comprehensive analysis of the Texas Textbook Controversy." Click on the following links to navigate the analysis.

The Overview
The Basic Facts
The History
News You Can Use
Money
Pro/Con: The Debate
Media Watchdogs
Quotes
Resources

Mike Lester's Obama on Muslims and John Cole on much the same theme; Ted Rall's The Solutionators; John Trever's The Economy; Tim Campbell's Back to School; Dwayne Booth's Obama on war; Randy Bish's Restoring Honor; and, Slowpoke's A Volatile Situation.

The next several years of the drug war should be particularly interesting due to an almost undiscussed phenomenon: the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who have or will be returning from years of serving in one of the world's (if not the world's) foremost regions for the production of hard drugs -- Afghanistan from which approximately 90% of the world's opium flows. This young generation of Americans were and are being thrown into a situation that swings from incredible stress to utter boredom; they are away from their families and other support/restraint networks; although loneliness must be a constant, romances with fellow soldiers and 'natives' are not sanctioned. And, yet, every soldier over there must know an easy source of relief from the stress, the boredom, the alienation and loneliness: plentiful and dirt-cheap drugs.

A factor that drove the explosion of drug use in the last decades of the 20th century was the return of veterans from the Vietnam War -- from the Golden Triangle region, equally notorious for drug production Drugs in Vietnam were plentiful and commonly used by American soldiers who faced many of the same stresses as those currently in Afghanistan or Iraq. Many Vietnam vets returned with drug addictions or, at the very least, a far more casual view of drug use than when they departed.

Arguably, the situation with soldiers now returning will be considerably worse for several reasons. For one thing, the war on drugs back home is far more draconian than it was in the 70s. For another thing, the conflicts have gone on longer than the Vietnam War and more soldiers have been revolved in and out of drug-laden areas. Despite Obama's hollow assurances, there is no sign that Americans will leave the region any time soon and, so, hundreds of thousands more soldiers may well be sent like kids into a candy store -- only the store is stocked with drugs. Added to this is an explicit Taliban strategy to provide drugs to American soldiers just as they provided them to Soviet soldiers when they were occupying the region. The return of heroin-addicted soldiers was key to the precipitous rise in hard drug use that still haunts Russia. Arguably, the serious drug problems with which Russia still grapples began in Afghanistan.

An added factor: there is an unusually high number of severely wounded soldiers returning. Troops in Afghanistan and Iraq are able to use protective gear and ride in tanks, unlike the soldiers who hiked in Vietnamese jungles and rode down the rivers. Moreover, medical care has improved dramatically since the late '60s and early 70s, which means many soldiers who would have died decades ago will live...but they will do so in constant pain and/or disability. Severely wounded and disabled veterans are likely to need the sort of strong pain medication that is highly addictive. It would be wonderful to believe that their pain could be eased by legalized marijuana that is comparatively non-addictive and benign but the widespread legalization of marijuana is politically improbable in the near future.

As the war on drug cartels in Mexico and countries southward heats up, America is ignoring an equally significant factor in the drug war: its own returning sons and daughters, not to mention the fresh ones it is sending off. The army actively denies addiction is happening, of course, with the likes of Dr. Ian McFarling, Acting Director of the Army Center for Substance Abuse Programs, claiming that "less than one half of one percent of soldiers in Iraq have tested positive for illegal drugs. "That's a testament to the kind of leadership we have is that they believe that that's not the place that they should be doing drugs." The organization Narconon calls addiction "the soldier's disease." And it nothing new. Some historians estimate that something akin to a 1/2 million soldiers became addicted (mostly to morphine) during the Civil War with its terribly high number of wounded. And, yet, military officials would have the public believe that this war, conducted in the 'bread basket' of drug production, is different. The fresh-faced patriots serving in the poppy fields would never smoke or snort or stick a needle in their arms...like a high percentage of all other American soldiers have done in other wars.

In the face of official denial, it is difficult to get current or solid information. Added to this difficulty is the fact that it will take 5 or 10 years for the Afghan-Iraq veterans to filter through the military medical hospitals onto the streets and into the various treatment programs or agencies.

As always, public ignorance is aided and abetted by the media, which is almost silent on this issue. Indeed, the foregoing post is prompted by one of the very few articles I've seen that even touches on veterans' addiction: For Addicted Veteran Regulation is Enemy The subtitle highlights yet another reason the drug war will be deeply impacted by returning vets: "Government balks at covering treatment for painkiller dependency." The article follows the story of a vet who needs expensive pain medication to function and, yet, has to beg for assistance from the military even to cover his meds. And, no, I am not arguing for tax-paid drug programs; I am pointing to the fact that the government will abandon the drug-addicted and drug-dependent veterans, leaving them to cope for themselves individually or to become society's problems.

This particular cost of war is yet to be realized. When the bill on this one comes due, it will be huge and the payment will be unpredictable.

Wendy has written about Philadelphia's placing a tax on bloggers. I am indebted to Knappster for -- in a totally different context -- bringing this 1765 quote from John Adams to my attention:


I think that captures, in a nutshell, exactly what Philadelphia is doing today. I'd say it's time for them to send the Liberty Bell back, but I'm not sure where to send it.

In anticipation of the 'withdrawal' of American troops from Iraq, the cartoonists comment....Nate Beeler's The Quagmire; Mike Keefe's ? Accomplished; Jimmy Margulies' Many Tough Battles; Jerry Holbert's New Biological Weapon; and, Arend van Dam's Americans Go Home.

And, now, for more general commentary....Bruce Beattie's Waiver of Liability; Mikhaela Reid's Unreported Crime; and Slowpoke on Islamophobia.

It seems there are certain political causes that Facebook simply will not condone. One of them is the campaign to legalize marijuana (hat tip to EFF):


That's political speech, plain and simple. And while the First Amendment doesn't apply to private outfits like Facebook, this does put a dent in their holier-than-thou attitude. I say again: Facebook cares nothing for your privacy, your freedom, or your rights.

Facebook claims that the stylized image of a marijuana leaf is banned because it is "a smoking product," like Marlboro or Camel. If you believe that, I can only ask, what are you smoking?

Update: Thanks to Brian C. on the forum, I now learn that Reddit was also instructed by their owners not to accept pro-marijuana-legalization advertising. I admire their response:

By now you've probably noticed that the newsfeeds for ifeminists and Goodbye, Microsoft are once again appearing in the right column.

It turned out that our 'bot-blocker saw a request coming from a web server, not a desktop web browser, so it thought this was suspicious and returned a 503 error. It doesn't treat all web servers that way, but it does flag a significant number. So if you are having problems getting our RSS feed -- from this site, or ifeminists -- to appear in your web page, please send me an email at webmaster©wendymcelroy.com. If necessary, I can reprogram the blocker to let your web server in.

I'm pleased, but not at all surprised, to read this:


The business model of the copyright trolls relies upon their targets settling without a fight. If only a few people mount a serious defense, Righthaven's scheme will no longer be profitable.

An email from a reader and a new friend, Nedlund: