Category: Rights

Keeping It Anonymous

Big Brother, Deep Thoughts, Rights

POTUS-wannabe Nikki Haley and some others have come right out and said that Internet anonymity should be banned.

I think that’s bullshit, despite the fact that I myself have eschewed Internet anonymity (for the most personal of reasons).  I think that while anonymity can breed mischief, it can also protect someone from retaliation when, for example, shining light on the inner workings of an institution.

Whistle-blowers in large institutions (especially government and large corporations) would almost certainly be silenced because of (justified) fears that they’d lose their job by so doing — even if they were exposing extreme malfeasance or negligence.  That cannot be a good thing.

Of course, anonymity affords trolls and other such excrescences the ability to say awful things — such as defamation or character assassination — not to mention unacceptable utterances such as… racism?

Oh yeah, and that’s the problem.  Because the minute you say “You can say this and not that”, there’s a little question of who decides the parameters of accepted speech.

We have a First Amendment that addresses that issue, I believe, and it was thoroughly covered in the Anti-Federalist by — ho! — the anonymous “Brutus”.

There is a vulnerability in that freedom, of course, just as there’s vulnerability in all our social and political freedoms.  But confining ourselves to speech for a moment, we know the old adage that a lie travels round the world before the truth can get out of bed, and anonymity is the prime facilitator thereof.

Online commenter “Fred_The_Wise” can post on Xwitter that he has proof that Bill Clinton is a serial molester of underage girls, and even Clinton’s feral lawyers would have a problem stopping that “untruth” from spreading and “contaminating” Clinton’s good name.  “Kim du Toit” can do no such thing, of course, unless he has the actual proof that Bill Clinton is such a pervert.

The problem, as we all know, is that “Fred_The_Wise”, even if he has actual proof of said molestation, is not going to be the next “suicide” at the hands of the Clinton “Hit Squad” because nobody knows who he is;  whereas “Kim du Toit” would have to be extremely careful of slippery soap in the shower and random nooses hanging from trees, if you get my drift.

That “Fred_The_Wise” might just be indulging in a little gratuitous character assassination is just a malevolent by-product of the freedom of speech.

Which is terrible, but unfortunately for goons like Nikki Haley, they’re just going to have to live with it, as we all have to do.

“Change Of Orders”

Government Thugs, Homeschooling, Rights

Here’s a “connect the dots” moment.  I’ve mentioned this sad case before.  First, courtesy of Annie Holmquist, some background:

Would you be willing to risk arrest by the government in order to choose the best education for your child?

That’s the situation the Romeike family faced a number of years ago when they lived in Bissingen, Germany. They chose to homeschool their young grade school age children even though homeschooling was illegal in Germany. The reason? Their children were bullied and scared about the violence they were facing in their local state school.

That choice resulted in a visit from police, and soon three of their children, ages six to nine, were hauled off in a police vehicle and forced to attend the official state school. Recounting the 2006 incident, father Uwe Romeike told one media outlet that he “felt very helpless,” going on to note, “My children were crying, the police were shouting.”

Faced with hefty fines, the Romeikes fled Germany for America in 2008, seeking asylum. Settling in Tennessee, the family continued homeschooling while they fought for protection from their German persecutors. In 2014, the Department of Homeland Security allowed the family to stay in the U.S. “under order of supervision and indefinite deferred action status,” according to the Homeschool Legal Defense Association.

The family—which has now grown to include two more children and two in-laws since the trauma in Germany—has continued to dwell in the U.S. for over a decade, living peacefully and homeschooling their children.

Until now. 

Let the Government bastardy begin.

On Sept. 6, 2023, the Romeikes went in for their annual immigration visit and were shocked when they were told they had four weeks to get their passports in order and self-deport to Germany. “The family had no prior warning, and was offered no explanation, other than that there had been a ‘change of orders,’” a Home School Legal Defense Association media posting explained.

What could possibly have caused this “change in orders”?  Let us now connect the dots, with this little statement from the Biden Cabinet Secretary of Education:

“I don’t have too much respect for people that are misbehaving in public and acting like they know what’s right for kids.”

Seriously?

Here’s the thing.  Tennessee is a homeschool-friendly state — i.e. the state government has no problem with people homeschooling their kids.  But:  immigration is a federal issue.  So if the Dept. of Education drops a little whisper in the ear of INS, the federal government can step in and fuck with people like the hapless Romeike family, essentially making Tennessee’s jurisdiction meaningless.

There is, of course, another interesting aspect to all this.  Since arriving in the U.S., the Romeikes have had two more children — and according to U.S. law, the two kids are U.S. citizens (yeah, they’re “anchor babies”).  So can the federal government deport U.S. citizens when in fact neither they nor any of their family have broken any American laws?

I hope the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSDLA) climbs into this with might and main — because this is precisely the kind of matter that is in their remit.

Read all of Annie’s article, because The Naked Communist  is clearly fast becoming part of official U.S. government policy.

In the meantime, let us think about the proper treatment for an unelected gauleiter government official who thinks that parents don’t know what’s best for their kids, but the government does.

Just to make my own position clear on this issue:  if I were being put in a similar position when homeschooling my own kids, I’d be making that difficult decision about calling in the HSDLA, or just going to the guns.  My kids belong to me, not to the State, no matter what the State thinks.

Oh, and Annie:  welcome back to Intellectual Takeout.  You have been sorely missed.

Vileness

Government Thugs, Rights

Well, when you see a headline over this article, you have to follow the link to see what all the fuss is about, and to ascertain for yourself the depth of the vileness:

FIVE former Met Police officers have pleaded guilty for sending a string of “grossly offensive” racist WhatsApp messages.  The messages included vile jibes about Rishi Sunak, Meghan Markle and Queen Elizabeth II.

Of course, the article itself doesn’t tell us what the actual messages were — I know, it’s just a clickbait tactic, shame on me — so because I live in a country where offensive messages are (for now) not subject to official censure, here’s what they might have been:

And for the Britishland censors and scolds:


Kiss my African-American ass.

Point Of Principle

Bureaucracy, Government Thugs, Plagues and Poxes, Resistance, Rights

I see that the medical scaremongers and charlatans are now mumbling (soon to be shouting, no doubt) about how the latest ‘n greatest Covid variant is going to kill us all unless we do all that shit that didn’t work the last time.

I might as well get it off my chest now:

  • I will not wear a face mask, because they’ve been proven ineffective and hamper my breathing
  • I will not patronize any business (or government office) that mandates the use thereof
  • I will likewise not curtail my social or commercial activities under terms of any government-mandated lockdown
  • I will not get yet another vaccination of some unproven (and apparently also ineffective) drug against this new Covid, nor any other Covid strain for that matter
  • any attempt to coerce me into doing any of the above will meet with a hostile, perhaps (depending on the circumstances) even violent response from me.

Others may join me in this, or not — it is a matter of complete indifference to me, as this is a purely personal position.

Corollary: 

We know what you’re trying to do, and it’s not going to work.

Long Time Coming

Legal Stuff, Rights, The Gun Thing

I’ve always maintained that it’s an injustice for someone to lose their Second Amendment rights because of a criminal record imposed by the commission of a non-violent crime.  By all means, deny the Second to recently-paroled armed robbers and the like — but for non-violent offenses like forgery or tax evasion?  No.

Seems as though some judges are coming to the same conclusion.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held this week in Range v. Garland that the government cannot disarm people convicted of minor, nonviolent offenses.

Unless I miss my guess, this is headed straight for the Supremes — and they’d better get it right.

Pushing And Shoving

Government Thugs, Resistance, Rights

It is worth noting that almost every instance of an ordinary citizen going crazy and killing government agents has come as a direct assault on his property rights.  In some cases it’s been linked to eminent domain seizures — e.g. that farmer in Missouri who gunned down two local government surveyors (and then shot himself immediately after)  over a “right of way” infringement on his land.  (I can’t find a link to the incident, but it happened at least ten years ago and I still remember the salient details.)  Here’s a more recent situation of Gummint getting too big for its britches (although as yet, there’s been no gunplay because Amish).

Anyway, all that’s unimportant to this post, because enter Fuckface Kerry:

John Kerry claimed that US farm confiscations are not off the table, as he stated that small farms contribute significant greenhouse gasses.

And no doubt he got his loony idea here:

Recently, the governing body of the European Union officially endorsed measures to compel farmers to vacate their lands as part of the EU’s Natura 2000 scheme, which categorizes farms as significant emitters of nitrogen. Under the plan, farmers would be offered 120 percent of their farm’s value through a “buyout” program. However, those who decline this offer would face the risk of being forcibly removed from their land without any financial compensation.

Farmers in Holland are undergoing the most radical regulations that are causing the culling of herds and destroying crops.

Because the Dutch farmers are unarmed, of course they have to resort to peaceful protests by blocking highways with their tractors.

Our American farmers (and their many supporters) are not similarly disadvantaged, and I think that anything that Fuckface starts is going to make the Cliven Bundy episode look like a Sunday church picnic.

Pass the popcorn, Simon.