John McCain tells Don Imus:

I would rather have a clean government than one where First Amendment rights were being respected which has become corrupt.

video

Some of us don’t share Senator McCain’s point of view that any particular problem justifies the abrogation of major provisions of the Bill of Rights.

Connecticut, once the land of steady habits and Yankee common sense, has become another state inhabited by suburban numbskulls ready to react to every news meme with coercive action at the state level. The Connecticut legislature on Thursday responded to the progressing peril of portly pubescents by banning carbonated soft drinks, including diet sodas (!), from all elementary, middle, and high schools, starting in July.

Reuters:

Connecticut’s state legislature voted on Thursday to ban sales of sodas and other sugary beverages in state elementary, middle and high schools as part of an effort to stem teen obesity.

Gov. Jodi Rell has pledged to sign the bill, which would make Connecticut the fourth U.S. state with a strong law in schools to trim the growing American teenage waistline.

The ban includes all regular and diet sodas, along with “electrolyte replacement beverages” such as Gatorade. The only drinks allowed to go on sale in schools would be bottled water, milk or 100-percent fruit and vegetable drinks.

“The bill clearly won’t solve all food and beverage questions that lead to the increase in excess weight and obesity that we are seeing among children and adults in our society, but it’s a good start,” said state Rep. Andrew Fleischmann.

The House approved the bill on Thursday by a slim 76-to-71 vote margin largely on party lines in the Democrat-controlled state Legislature. Last week it passed the Senate 24-to-8.

Republicans proposed multiple amendments that were all voted down and said the issue should be left to local communities and not decided by the state.

It’s becoming just as bad as California back there.

The partisan, politically-motivated prosecution of Rush Limbaugh reached an ignominious conclusion today, when the amiable conservative talk radio personality’s prosecutors agreed to dismiss charges against Limbaugh in 18 months, if he underwent a face-saving recovery program, and coughed up $30,000 (pocket change for the celebrity) to cover the state’s costs for the unprecedented three year prosecutorial fishing expedition.

Limbaugh was charged with “fraud to conceal information to obtain a prescription,” pled not guilty, and was released on a derisory $3000 bail.

AP

The left, with characteristic intellectual dishonesty, is blowing smoke, running headlines saying “Rush Limbaugh Arrested” or “Rush Limbaugh Turns Himself In.” Tomorrow, Rush Limbaugh will be free, with no more charges hanging over him, richer and more successful than his liberal persecutors, and still in possession of the largest AM Radio audience of them all. How’s Air America making out, lefties?

George Will is absolutely right. Rather than have these kinds of legislators disgrace the Republican Party, it would be much better to just surrender the House back to the democrats. If people are going to vote for things like this, let’s make sure they’re wearing the right Party emblem.

If in November Republicans lose control of the House of Representatives, April 5 should be remembered as the day they demonstrated that they earned defeat. Traducing the Constitution and disgracing conservatism, they used their power for their only remaining purpose — to cling to power. Their vote to restrict freedom of speech came just as the GOP’s conservative base is coming to the conclusion that House Republicans are not worth working for in October or venturing out to vote for in November…

..The 211 Republicans who voted for big-government regulation of speech will have no principled objection. How many principled Republicans remain? Only 18. The following, who voted against restricting 527s:

Roscoe Bartlett (Maryland), Chris Chocola (Indiana), Jeff Flake (Arizona), Vito Fossella (New York), Trent Franks (Arizona), Scott Garrett (New Jersey), Louie Gohmert (Texas), Jeb Hensarling (Texas), Ernest Istook (Oklahoma), Walter Jones (North Carolina), Steve King (Iowa), Connie Mack (Florida), Cathy McMorris (Washington), Randy Neugebauer (Texas), Ron Paul (Texas), Mike Pence (Indiana), John Shadegg (Arizona) and Lynn Westmoreland (Georgia).

On this remnant of libertarian, limited-government conservatism a future House majority can be built. The current majority forfeited its raison d’etre April 5.

Ohio State University at Mansfield librarian Scott Savage suggested several books for a freshman reading program, including David Kupelian’s The Marketing of Evil, which title associates a number of cases of the evolution of the American moral perspective, most notably the way in which homosexuality is viewed, to calculated and astute marketing by the organized left, and some other conservative titles.

A firestorm of argument over book choices erupted (primarily over the Kupelian book, of course), and events culminated in a unanimous faculty vote to file sexual harassment charges against the conservative librarian. Accordingly, three professors duly filed a complaint of discrimination and harassment against him, saying that the book suggestions made them feel “unsafe.”

Ace broke the story. Eugene Volokh comments. And Morgan at the excellent group blog YARGB summarizes and adds further details.

David Schmidtz at Cato discusses which forms of inequality matter, i.e., which deserve intervention and redress. Replies from Peter Singer, Tom G. Palmer, and Jacob Hacker will be forthcoming. The essay is excerpted from his new book, The Elements of Justice.

The key philosophical point: that there is a prior moral question about which inequalities are ours (i.e., society’s) to arrange, lies outside the specific scope of this essay’s focus.

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds.

Eric at Classical Values identifies the typical maneuver employed by statists to expand the definition of crime:

Existing laws don’t “work”! New laws are needed! I’m confused about what seems to be a recurrent pattern in this country. When there are laws against something, and these laws are not enforced, instead of enforcing the existing laws, there’s always a demand for new laws.Tougher laws.

It’s as if there’s some magical belief system that the tougher the law is, the stronger it is, and the more likely that human conduct will be deterred. Enforcement of existing laws never seems to enter anyone’s mind.

The point here is not whether I happen to agree with the laws. It’s just a recurrent pattern. The drug laws started as a tax measure in 1914, and ever since, they have become ever more draconian. Examples aren’t really needed, although the latest trend (now that they’ve run out of drugs to make illegal) is to criminalize precursor ingredients. So Americans are no longer allowed to buy cold medicine over the counter — all because it might be used to manufacture illegal drugs. What’s next? Glassware which might be used to cook drugs…

The pattern seems to be pass laws, ignore them, wait until the problem is huge, then pass draconian laws, plus new laws against conduct which resulted from the previous climate of non-enforcement.

It has long been illegal for felons to buy or possess guns, and to buy, sell, or transfer a gun to a felon. But felons buy guns all the time illegally. Which means that we need a crackdown on what? On perfectly legal purchases of guns by ordinary citizens.

Add to this the trend of sending in SWAT teams to perform routine law enforcement, and it’s fair to wonder whether the goal is to create a police state.

I hate police states — and I’m just wondering whether neglecting to enforce the law is one of the precursor ingredients.

At the University of Illinois:

CHICAGO—The editor in chief of a student-led newspaper serving the University of Illinois has been suspended after printing cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad that, when published in Europe, enraged Muslims and led to violent protests in the Middle East and Asia.

Editor in chief Acton Gorton and his opinion editor, Chuck Prochaska, were relieved of their duties at The Daily Illini on Tuesday while a task force investigates the internal decision-making and communication that led to the publishing of the cartoons, according to a statement by the newspaper’s publisher and general manager, Mary Cory.

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At University of Chicago:

Inside Hoover House, a scurrilous joking note about the Prophet Muhammad was taped to a dorm room door. A Muslim resident was outraged. It was the kind of incident that could have sparked serious trouble.

But a deputy dean at the University of Chicago says the culprit defused the situation by writing a note of apology.

“While his desire to make a statement was not intended to be directed at any one individual, that he had demonstrated insensitivity,” said Deputy Dean Cheryl Gutman.

The head of the University of Chicago’s Muslim Student Association says it was apparently an act of stupidity, not blind hatred.

“I think an apology is very important, just to say that he didn’t mean what he was doing, and like I said, it was an act of ignorance,” said Mohammed Hasan…

..Since the apology was made, and the Muslim student accepted it, the university chose not to punish or evict the other young man. The University of Chicago considers the incident closed.

Or is it?

Details remain unclear as to whether disciplinary action will be taken against a Hoover House resident who posted a homemade sketch of the Muslim prophet Muhammad on the door of his suite two weeks ago.

Accompanied by the caption “Mo’ Mohammed, Mo’ Problems,” the drawing prompted strong reactions from Muslim students on campus and, more recently, attracted the attention of free speech advocates.

Katie Callow-Wright, director of undergraduate student housing, said that although details on the status of the case could not be discussed, the process of addressing such complaints involves a series of discussions and careful review.

“When a resident reports an incident or concern to their resident staff or the Housing Office, the resident staff gather information by talking with students and, if necessary, other staff to understand all of the facts of the situation,” she said. “This is an informal process, and can sometimes entail several individual meetings or conversations.”

Callow-Wright added that the appropriate Resident Heads (RHs) would hold individual meetings with the student who allegedly violated community standards.

“Depending upon the situation, a meeting with a student or students might then take place in the Office of Undergraduate Student Housing,” she said.

Hat tip to Brian Hughes.

asks the Liberator Online in the February issue.

Before you answer, consider:

In January, an Atlanta man was arrested and handcuffed for selling a subway token at face value. Donald Pirone observed another passenger having difficulty with a token vending machine, so he gave him a $1.75 token. After the man insisted on paying him, Pirone was cited by a transit officer for a misdemeanor, since state law prohibits selling tokens — even at face value. A MARTA spokesperson denied that handcuffing a customer for helping another customer was excessive. “There are customer service phones for people who are having trouble getting tokens out of the machine,” she said.

Meanwhile, in late 2005, an Ohio man spent three days in jail because he didn’t put identification tags on his family’s pet turtles and snakes. Terry Wilkins broke a state law requiring owners of native reptiles to tag them with a PIT (personal-integrated transponder). The tags, which are the size of a grain of rice and can be inserted under the animal’s skin, contain a bar code readable by a scanner. Wilkins refused to tag the animals because he said PIT tags cause health problems in small reptiles.

It goes on. In Kentucky, Larry Casteel was arrested for not attending a parenting class for divorcing parents, as mandated by state law. He spent the night in jail. In New Jersey, police are giving tickets to people who leave their cars running for more than three minutes in store parking lots. Stopwatch-wielding police hit the offenders with a $200 fine for violating the state’s anti-idling law. In northwest Georgia, 49 convenience store owners were arrested for selling legal products to customers. The owners — mostly of Indian background — sold cold medicine, baking soda, table salt, matches, and lantern fuel. Police said the ingredients could be used to make methamphetamine. In Burlington, Vermont, police are ticketing people for not removing keys from the ignition and locking their cars. Police said the state law prevents car thefts. Violators are fined $79.

So — are you still sure you can get through a day without violating a law? If so, don’t worry. Legislators are making more things illegal. In New York City, a city council member wants to make it a crime to ride a bike without a registration number tag. Violators would face up to 15 days imprisonment. In Illinois, a state senator wants to make it a crime not to have a carbon monoxide detector installed in your home. In Pennsylvania, a state senator filed a bill to allow police to fine drivers $75 if they don’t clean snow off their car. In Virginia, a state legislator wants to make it illegal to show your underwear in public. Girls (or boys) with low-rider pants would get hit with a $50 fine if their thongs show.

Novelist Ayn Rand once wrote: “There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible to live without breaking laws.”

Have we reached that point? Is it impossible to live without breaking laws? Before you answer, better check to make sure that your pets have transponder tags, that you didn’t leave the keys in your car, and that your underwear is not showing.

Theodore Dalrymple, who has moved to France, finds appalling the ever-increasing extinction of Liberty in Britain:

I have lived under a Latin American military dictatorship where daily life was freer than in Britain today. Of course, you couldn’t go out into the street and shout “Down with Señor Presidente”, at least not without dire consequences; on the other hand, you were considerably less surveyed, supervised and harried as you went about your business than you are in contemporary Britain.

Dean Wolstenhome, Greyhounds Coursing a Hare

The self-styled I-Team (“I” for investigation, get it?) of KGO-TV in San Francisco hit pay dirt Superbowl weekend. While couch-potatoes all over America swilled beer, munched pretzels, and watched steroid-enhanced gladiatorial combat over the pigskin spheroid, Ted Baxter discovered that a tiny minority of Americans were still afield in California pursuing the ancient sport of coursing.

Coursing is a very old and traditional form of hunting, whose literature goes back to the 2nd century A.D., cultivated both in Christian Europe and in the Islamic Middle East, consisting of the reduction to possession of game (typically, the hare) by the pursuit of gazehounds, i.e., dogs which hunt by sight. Some breeds typically used in coursing are greyhounds and saluqi.

Ted, of course, was engaged in a more modern, and far less sporting, type of hunting: the pursuit and elimination of the unpopular minority by a pack of fools and bigots down a trail of prejudice, guided by curs like Ted himself. Ted Baxter in this case being an orthodontically-gleaming opportunist named Dan Noyes, who preens and congratulates himself publicly for his reporter’s instinct (I’d call it something else), and for telling a compelling story.

The compelling story consists of the survival of a “blood sport” within the Bay Area, an esoteric and little-known activity, incomprehensible to the urban masses, with the controversial feature common to all blood sports, including fishing, of the death of the quarry, at least on those occasions –often in the minority– when the pursuit is successful. To city boys like Ted, meat is produced in government-supervised nutrition factories, where it is processed, packaged, and then shipped to convenient supermarkets. The death of an animal is unthinkable. As one city-dweller once said to me: how could you be so heartless as to kill an animal, when you can eat a hamburger at McDonald’s?

Ted Baxter’s indignant news story, which opines: “That’s got to be a tough way to die for a rabbit.” implicitly imagines that aging jack rabbits retire to nursing homes, collect old age pensions, and die in bed.

Ted has no idea that, in California, jack rabbits breed year round, producing a litter of up to 8 leverets every six weeks or so. Females nurse the young for only two or three days, and then go back to making more jack rabbits. Crash production is essential, because the life of the jack rabbit is characterically short. Few jack rabbits live to the ripe old age of one year. The jack rabbit is a principal staple of the diet of coyotes, bobcats, foxes (red, grey, and kit), minks, martens, fishers, ferrets, mountain lions, bears, weasels, and numerous species hawks and owls and snakes; and are commonly killed by motor vehicles and by domestic dogs and cats.

It sounds terrible and barbarous to some busy-body old lady, left-wing state legislator from Berkeley, like Loni Hancock to whom Ted went running to tattle, that jack rabbits do sometimes suffer the unenviable fate (as Ted notes) of being slain by the jaws of the greyhounds. But, once Comrade Hancock introduces (see her blog), and in theory passes, her bill banning coursing in California, the jack rabbit saved by her efforts and those of noble Ted Baxter (and Channel’s 7’s crack I-Team) gets to run only a short distance further down the sunny California meadow, and, whoops! down come a great big red-tailed hawk which slays him with his talons, and tears him to pieces with his beak. Or up comes the hungry coyote, whose jaws are not readily distinguishable from those of greyhound.

The elimination of this ancient, complex and honorable tradition will, in reality, spare few pangs to jack rabbits.

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Steve Bodio also comments on this classic manifestation of the well-known tolerance of California’s Bay Area.

Fred Siegel at the New York Post understands the vulnerability of a modern Europe lacking all conviction, faced with Islam’s passionate intensity:

EUROPE’S future may hinge on the outcome of the Danish cartoon affair. It has long seemed almost inevitable that either Islam would be Europeanized or Europe would be Islamized. The European reaction to date suggests that the latter seems more likely…

Europe may have given up on imperialism, but the same can’t be said for the Islamic world. The 2003 report “Dialogue between Peoples and Cultures in the Euro-Mediterranean Area” bears a striking cover that sums up the Arab view of the relationship with Europe: It’s a medieval Arab map of an upside-down Europe at the feet of a commanding Arab North Africa.

The Arab world understands Europe’s weaknesses far better than the other way around. Muslim spokesmen usually describe criticism of Islamism as “racist” — as if religious ideology were a biological given.

They’ve also learned how to game Western liberalism. When criticized for denying the Holocaust, they defend themselves as exercising their free-speech rights. But they drop the free-speech bit when insisting that images offensive to Muslims be barred and argue instead on the grounds of multicultural sensitivity. (That argument gets strong backing from most of the European left, which, looking upon Muslims as the new proletariat, insists that Islamophobia, not Islamofascism, is the great issue of the day.)

None of this should be unfamiliar to Americans, who’ve seen the same game play out on U.S. college campuses. But what’s happening in Europe is campus political correctness enforced by violence and the threat of war.

Islamists insist that Europeans must desist from criticizing Islamism because that will only alienate the moderates — a game familiar to anyone who remembers the Black Power movement. In fact, one of the biggest losers in this game is moderate Muslims in Denmark — who are afraid of being squeezed between zealots on one side and a right-wing backlash on the other. They have urged Rasmussen not to give in. But if European governments can’t stand up to extremism, how can moderate Muslims?

Like the Czechs of the 1930s, the Danes of today have become a bellwether of Europe’s willingness to confront thuggery. Will Europe once again fail the test?

At least the lines have now been draw so clearly that only fools, knaves, cowards, Eurocrats and appeasers can deny the obvious.