From Crime Prevention Research Center.
Reality is Unreal
Political Incorrectness Paradoxes, and Anything else out of left field.
Saturday, November 02, 2024
Tuesday, October 29, 2024
The fight against free speech
From Jonathan Turley.
Dr. Jay’s Slam Dunk:
Blacklisted Scientist Receives Prestigious Award for “Intellectual Freedom”
Sunday, October 27, 2024
Judicial stupidity?
From Jonathan Turley.
Over
the Border: Gun and Torts Liability to Collide in Mexican Case Before the
Supreme Court
2. 2. Whether the production and sale of firearms in the United States amounts to “aiding and abetting” illegal firearms trafficking because firearms companies allegedly know that some of their products are unlawfully trafficked.
4.
Mexico’s complaint is wildly off base both factually and
legally. It suggests that these companies are effectively funneling guns to
criminal gangs in Mexico by producing products that they have used in criminal
conduct.
Mexico and gun control advocates are focusing on an
exception for any manufacturer or seller of a firearm that “knowingly violated
a State or Federal statute applicable to the sale or marketing of the product
[firearm], and the violation was a proximate cause of the harm for which relief
is sought….”
The problem is Government
Wednesday, October 23, 2024
More attacks on free speech
From Jonathan Turley.
Musk
Mania: European Censors Warn Musk that They May Level Fines Based on all of his
Businesses
Tuesday, October 22, 2024
The cost of regulation
If you get rid of a regulator who is enforcing nonsensical regulations, he must find a job doing something that is considered useful in the private sector, e.g. producing consumer goods. In addition, you free up, possibly, many private sector employees busy complying with regulations. These people also would have to find “productive” jobs.
Here is an example.
Sunday, October 20, 2024
Cannabis Use During Adolescence and Young Adulthood and Academic Achievement
Wednesday, October 16, 2024
The dynamic duo of speech control
JT is on target.
Walzing Around Free Speech: How A Walz Interview Became a Dizzying Dance of Distraction
Below is my column in the New York Post on the recent interview of Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Gov. Tim Walz defending his record on free speech. The interview with Fox host Shannon Bream only magnified concerns over what I previously described as the most anti-free speech ticket in centuries.
Here is the column:
Roughly five centuries ago, a new dance first reported in Augsburg, Germany was promptly dubbed the “waltz” after the German term for “to roll or revolve.”
Today, there is no more nimble performer of that dizzying dance than Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz.
Indeed, “Walzing” has become the Minnesota governor’s signature political two-step after his controversial statements on his allegedly socialist views, eliminating the electoral college and other topics.
On Sunday, Walz’s dance partner was Fox News host Shannon Bream, who seemed to be fighting vertigo as the candidate tried to deflect his shocking prior statements on free speech.
Bream asked Walz about his prior declaration that there is “no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech”— a statement that runs counter to decades of Supreme Court decisions.
Walz notably did not deny or retract his statement. Instead, his interview ironically became itself a flagrant example of misinformation.
First of all, misinformation and hate speech are not exceptions to the First Amendment: Whether it is the cross burnings of infamous figures like KKK leader Clarence Brandenburg or the Nazis who marched in Skokie, Ill., hate speech is protected.
Yet both Harris and Walz are true believers in the righteousness of censorship for disinformation, misinformation and malinformation.
The Biden administration defines misinformation as “false, but not created or shared with the intention of causing harm” — meaning it would subject you to censorship even if you are not intending harm.
It defines malinformation as “based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.”
So you can post “true facts,” but would still be subject to censorship if you are viewed as misleading others with your pesky truth-telling.
Furthermore, “book bans” are not equivalent to the Harris-Walz censorship policies.
After years of supporting censorship and blacklisting, Democrats are attempting to deflect questions by claiming that the GOP is the greater threat.
“We’re seeing censorship coming in the form of book bannings in different places,” Walz told Bream. “We’re seeing attempts in schools.”
First, a reality check: The Biden-Harris administration has helped fund and actively support the largest censorship system in our history, a system described by one federal court as “Orwellian.”
These are actual and unrelenting efforts to target individuals and groups for opposing views on subjects ranging from gender identity to climate change to COVID to election fraud.
While Walz and others rarely specifically reference the book bans in question, Florida is one state whose laws concern age limits on access to graphic or sexual material in schools.
School districts have always been given wide latitude in making such decisions on curriculum or library policies. Indeed, while rarely mentioned by the media, the left has demanded the banning or alteration of a number of classic books, including “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Of Mice and Men,” under diversity or equity rationales.
I have long opposed actual book bans perpetrated by both the left and the right. However, school districts have always made such access and curriculum decisions.
Finally, Walz and others often sell censorship by citing the dangers of child pornography or of threats made against individuals.
Walz on Sunday followed Hillary Clinton’s recent pro-censorship campaign as he employed such misdirection.
“The issue on this was the hate speech and the protected hate speech — speech that’s aimed at creating violence, speech that’s aimed at threats to individuals,” he claimed. “That’s what we’re talking about in this.”
First, he’d said there is no protected hate speech.
Second, the law already provides ample protections against threats toward individuals.
What’s most striking is that, after years of unapologetically embracing censorship (often under the Orwellian term “content moderation”), the left does not seem to want to discuss it in this election.
Democrats in Congress opposed every major effort to investigate the role of the Biden administration in the social-media censorship system it constructed. Many denied any such connection.
Elon Musk ended much of that debate with the release of the Twitter Files showing thousands of emails from the administration targeting individuals and groups with opposing views.
Now the public is being asked to vote for the most anti-free speech ticket in centuries — but neither Harris nor Walz want to talk about it in any detail.
The result may be the largest bait-and-switch in history.
Walz, Clinton and others also falsely claim they are simply trying to stop things like child pornography — which is already covered by existing criminal laws.
But what many on the left want is to regain what Clinton called their loss of “control” over what we are allowed to say or hear on social media.
Make no mistake about it: The “Walzing” of free speech is one dance you would be wise to decline.
Otherwise, do not be surprised if, when the music stops, you find yourself without both your partner and your free speech.
Monday, October 14, 2024
More attacks on freedom from the Left
JT is on target.
Politicians on both sides are guilty of attempts to restrict freedom. However, the Left seems better at it, currently, hence is the most dangerous.
Liberals are Losing their Minds over Elon Musk
Below is my column in The Hill on the Musk mania now sweeping over the media with pundits and politicians unleashing unhinged attacks on the billionaire. In an Age of Rage, Musk is now eclipsing Donald Trump as Public Enemy No. 1. It began with his stance against censorship.
Here is the column:
This week, Elton John publicly renounced the Rocket Man — no, not the 1972 song, but Elon Musk, whom he called an “a**hole” in an awards ceremony.
Sir Elton, 77, is only the latest among celebrities and pundits to denounce Musk for his support of former president Donald Trump and his opposition to censorship. Musk-mania is so overwhelming that some are calling for his arrest, deportation and debarment from federal contracts.
This week, the California Coastal Commission rejected a request from the Air Force for additional launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base. It is not because the military agency did not need the launches. It was not because the nation and the community would not benefit from them. Rather, it was reportedly because, according to one commissioner, Musk has “aggressively injected himself into the presidential race.”
By a 6-4 vote, the California Coastal Commission rejected the military’s plan to let SpaceX launch up to 50 rockets per year from the base in Santa Barbara County.
Musk’s SpaceX is becoming a critical part of national security programs. It will even be launching a rescue mission for two astronauts stranded in space. The advances of SpaceX under Musk are legendary. The Air Force wanted to waive the requirement for separate permits for SpaceX in carrying out these critical missions.
To the disappointment of many, SpaceX is now valued at over $200 billion and just signed a new $1 billion contract with NASA. Yet neither the national security value nor the demands for SpaceX services appear to hold much interest for officials like Commissioner Gretchen Newsom (no relation to California’s governor, Gavin Newsom): “Elon Musk is hopping about the country, spewing and tweeting political falsehoods and attacking FEMA while claiming his desire to help the hurricane victims with free Starlink access to the internet.”
Newsom is the former political director for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 569. It did not seem to matter to her that increased launches meant more work for electrical workers and others. Rather, it’s all about politics.
Commission Chair Caryl Hart added “here we’re dealing with a company, the head of which has aggressively injected himself into the presidential race and he’s managed a company in a way that was just described by Commissioner Newsom that I find to be very disturbing.”
In my book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I discuss how Musk became persona non grata when he bought Twitter and announced that he was dismantling the company’s massive censorship apparatus.
He then outraged many on the left by releasing the Twitter Files, showing the extensive coordination of the company with the government in a censorship system described by a federal court as “Orwellian.”
After the purchase, former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton called upon Europeans to force Musk to censor her fellow Americans under the notorious Digital Services Act. Clinton has even suggested the arrest of those responsible for views that she considers disinformation.
Silicon Valley investor Roger McNamee called for Musk’s arrest and said that, as a condition of getting government contracts, officials should “require him to moderate his speech in the interest of national security.”
Former Clinton Secretary of Labor Robert Reich wants Musk arrested for simply refusing to censor other people.
Former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann called for Musk to be deported and all federal contracts cancelled with this company. As with many in the “Save Democracy” movement, Olbermann was unconcerned with the denial of free speech or constitutional protections. “If we can’t do that by conventional means, President Biden, you have presidential immunity. Get Elon Musk the F out of our country and do it now.”
Of course, none of these figures are even slightly bothered about other business leaders with political opinions, so long as, like McNamee, they are supporting Harris or at least denouncing Trump. Musk has failed to yield to a movement infamous for cancel campaigns and coercion. The usual alliance of media, academia, government and corporate forces hit Musk, his companies and even advertisers on X.
Other corporate officials collapsed like a house of cards to demands for censorship — see, for example, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. Musk, in contrast, responded by courageously releasing the Twitter Files and exposing the largest censorship system in our history.
That is why I describe Musk as arguably the single most important figure in this generation in defense of free speech. The intense hatred for Musk is due to the fact that he was the immovable object in the path of their formerly unstoppable force.
The left will now kill jobs, cancel national security programs and gut the Constitution in its unrelenting campaign to get Musk. His very existence undermines the power of the anti-free speech movement. In a culture of groupthink, Musk is viewed as a type of free-thought contagion that must be eliminated.
Their frustration became anger, which became rage. As Elton John put it in “Rocket Man,” he was supposed to be “burning out his fuse up here alone.”
Yet, here he remains.
George Bernard Shaw once said “a reasonable man adjusts himself to the world. An unreasonable man expects the world to adjust itself to him. Therefore, all progress is made by unreasonable people.”
With all of his idiosyncrasies and eccentricities, Elon Musk just might be that brilliantly unreasonable person.
Saturday, October 12, 2024
The Con in Consensus
RM is a Professor of Economics and is extremely knowledgeable about statistics.
A little old, but still relevant.
Here is the link to his article in the Financial Post.
https://www.rossmckitrick.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/con-in-consensus.pdf