War on Abstractions 24 Aug 2007 As part of the “War on Drugs” an entire family of hydroponics sellers, selling legally available material, were sentenced to prison without parole. Gary Tucker has just been released after a ten year stretch and confiscation of all his goods and money. His brother Steve died of cancer in prison. Why? He refused to allow the DEA to install surveillance cameras in his store to identify his customers. “This isn’t Nazi Germany” he said. One wonders… read the rest. It’s harrowing. Hat tip to the Lippard Blog Politics
Politics Arbitrary execution 28 Oct 2009 Question: If a state kills people of some country not their own, because they think but have not shown in a court of law that those people have committed a crime, and the people are not combatants of a legally recognised enemy state, is this legal? Most jurisprudence would suggest… Read More
Australian stuff Are political parties the problem not the solution? 27 Mar 2014 I am slightly active in the political party that I am a member of, but it worries me that maybe it is the very existence of political parties as formal structures that is the problem in modern politics in democracies. Here is a brief argument why: If you have a… Read More
Australian stuff Time for a predictable, just and independent surveyor of government and politics 13 Sep 201413 Sep 2014 This is about Australian politics, so please ignore it if you do not care. In New South Wales there is a quasi-judicial investigative organ called the Independent Commission against Corruption, or ICAC (which a certain news empire’s rags insist upon calling “Icac” to avoid focusing on the meaning of the… Read More
In my area, I’m seeing more and more police crackdowns on just about everything, from DUI, to drugs, to parking tickets. The politicians “war on crime” slogan sells well here, and they’re getting better at finding things to convict you of.