Perrin’s definition of government: (Noun) (originating around 10,000 B.C. in Hell) A collection of psychopathic control freaks hell-bent on minding everyone else’s business at gun point. This lowly institution is good for killing people, enriching bankers, and not much else.
Show me a government, any government, and I’ll show you a murder of monstrous, freedom-crushing maniacs. Meddlesome at best, Satanic at worst, an unfit concept long passed over by civilization.
Texas once had a law banning the sale of dildos – not making that up. One woman was actually prosecuted after holding a sales party at her home. Several adult entertainment businesses sued the State claiming a Fourteenth Amendment Due Process violation. See: Reliable Consultants, Inc., et al. v. Earle and The State of Texas, 517 F.3d 738, Slip Op. 06-51067 (5th Cir., 2008). The Fifth Circuit struck down the law and struck a blow for individual freedom (as corny a freedom as may be…).
The Texas Solicitor who argued (in vain) against the sale of rubber weapons of mass destruction was none other than Presidential candidate Ted “Glen Beck’s Man Crush” Cruz – he the victor of the recent Colorado GOP non primary. I’m not sure how much tax money he wasted on the case (Federal Court ain’t cheap rent). He did obviously waste the time of the Judges, earning himself a 2-1 overthrow. Teddy declined to take the case higher. Lonely housewives breathed easier. Or, rapidly. Something.
The Fifth Circuit took down Texas’s law in as much because of Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. at 578 (2003) (a la Bowers v. Hardwick) as because the government presented no evidence of any legitimate state interest necessitating such an idiotic, overbearing, busybody ban in the first place. More on legitimacy in a moment. The Court held: “The State’s primary justifications for the statute are “morality based.” The asserted interests include “discouraging prurient interests in autonomous sex and the pursuit of sexual gratification unrelated to procreation and prohibiting the commercial sale of sex.” Reliable, Id. at Slip 10.
Perhaps recognizing that public morality is an insufficient justification for the statute after Lawrence, the State asserts that an interest the statute serves is the “protection of minors and unwilling adults from exposure to sexual devices and their advertisement.” It is undeniable that the government has a compelling interest in protecting children from improper sexual expression. However, the State’s generalized concern for children does not justify such a heavy-handed restriction on the exercise of a constitutionally protected individual right. Ultimately, because we can divine no rational connection between the statute and the protection of children, and because the State offers none, we cannot sustain the law under this justification.
Id, at 11 (double emphasis added).
The State and Teddy came to battle with no factual evidence and a shaky “moral” legal argument. Morals are good. Their best in their place. Many are upset by the notion that one cannot legislate morality. A ruling like this is salt in their wounds. Their reaction is evidence of their own lack of morality, of a substitution of the Divine with the positive. God will handle matters related to morality. He does not need help from Texas or any other band of liars and thieves. Speaking of morality and Ted Cruz, Ted now advocates carpet bombing. Incinerating civilians is much more moral than selling a vibrator; God will surely agree.
The moment has come! Let’s look at the Texan idea that the state as an interest in banning sex toys in order to protect children and promote procreation (making up our evidence, if needed, as the State provided none). Law professors and black-robed priests prattle on about various standards of state interests – to be weighed against human freedoms or rights. Compelling, rationally related, important, legitimate – all artful when written out in a brief but still bullshit. I care, here, about the factor of legitimacy, real legitimacy. When talking about people (women one would hope) who use these…devices it becomes obvious they are the sorts who are not interested, at the time, in procreation. They’re looking for a little fun. They’re minding their own business behind closed doors.
Government is not content to leave anyone alone, that much is clear. What, really, honestly, is a state’s interest in procreation, children and humans in general. There is no guaranteed supply of people; no state is just entitled to subjects. In their absence the state would have no one to govern, to boss around. Therein lies the interest. Children are future taxpayers to the state. They are future speed trap victims. They are future cannon-fodder to march off to war. It’s immoral from the state’s perspective to withhold future victims, victims who might be needed to carry out such morality as a carpet bombing run.
The other week another opinion came out a different Court of Appeals on a different topic. Whereas the Fifth Circuit got Reliable right, the Ninth missed the Constitution on searches and seizures in United States v. Magallon-Lopez, ___F.3d___, Slip Op. 14-30249 (9th Cir., March 31, 2016). Different results for freedom but both cases highlight the hateful, demented existence of government.
In Magallon-Lopez the famously liberal Ninth Circuit sided with the police state. “The United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that police officers can lie to suspects in regards to a traffic stop — even when no violation has occurred. The ruling essentially gives police officers carte blanche to stop anyone they want for absolutely no reason — merely acting on a hunch.” Matt Agorist, Court Rules Police Can Legally Make Up Lies to Pull People Over to Fish for Criminal Behavior, The Free Thought Project, April 11, 2016.
The criminal subject matter of Magallon is as unpopular as that of Reliable was silly. Defendant Magallon was a meth peddler, unwelcome in most communities. Still, we play the cases we are dealt. Both actions revolve around universal rights and are only brought to light by their subject participants. Both demonstrate government will do anything to abrogate liberty.
The defendant, who did not and could not seriously contest the existence of reasonable suspicion for stopping the car, contended that the stop violated the Fourth Amendment because the officer who pulled him over deliberately lied when stating the reason for the stop, and the reason the officer gave was not itself supported by reasonable suspicion. Rejecting this contention, the panel wrote that so long as the facts known to the officer establish reasonable suspicion to justify an investigatory stop, the stop is lawful even if the officer falsely cites as the basis for the stop a ground that is not supported by reasonable suspicion. The panel concluded that in light of the information obtained during the stop, the officers had probable cause to seize the car.
Magallon-Lopez, Id. at Slip 2 (Summary)(emphasis added).
Magallon and a friend were suspected by the DEA of running drugs. This was known to local Montana police who initiated a traffic stop. The asserted reason for the stop was an improper lane change – a flat lie. The vehicle was seized and searched, meth was found, and the occupants arrested. Again, the police only knew that other police suspected the defendant of carrying drugs (these are illegal for the same specious reasons sex toys were in Texas). The arresting officers had no actual knowledge of real criminal activity. Therefore they lied. And, lying is okay as long as it is done by the government. Given this new standard I may have to refresh How to Interact with the Police – best to just live your life completely in a basement somewhere.
So much for the Fourth Amendment. The Court withheld a ruling on Due Process grounds (really, they did enough). No dissent in this case, just a concurrence which noted that Montana officers are statutorily bound to disclose their (real) reasons for arresting someone. Lying and breaking the law are okay so long as committed by servants of the state.
A “God-fearing” conservative desiring war over privacy. Former “liberals” selling out liberty for lies and lawlessness. No, one doesn’t need a government for this – an insane asylum would be enough.
Intimitated.org.
By the way: this is post number 450. Rolling!
