Happy New Year -- Be Safe!

As we contemplate changes in some of our alcohol laws, we can't afford to forget the very real dangers of drunk driving. This New Years, please be safe! If you're going to be drinking too much for safe driving this evening, stay overnight, choose a designated driver, or call a cab. If you're on the roads, watch out for reckless drivers and report them. Defensive driving works.

I wish you a free and prosperous New Year as we discover new opportunities to fight for liberty in 2008.

Dempsey Challenges Unreasonable Alcohol Laws

Bob Dempsey, the coroner of San Miguel County, wrote a critique of two of MADD's policies, the 0.08 percent blood-alcohol limit for driving and the 21-year age restriction. Dempsey's article was published on December 29 in The Telluride Watch. Regarding the blood-alcohol limit, Dempsey writes:

... Among coroners who I have talked to, most believe problems don't begin until about 0.12, which would be a more realistic legal level. ... At 0.08 there is little probability of causing an accident. Because of MADD's low-limit success, the fight against drunk driving has shifted from serious abusers to responsible drinkers. Law enforcement has become less selective, less prepared to ferret out drunk drivers and is losing focus on the real threat, namely, habitually drunk drivers. ...

Karolyn Nunnallee, president of MADD, predicted in 2000 that a nationwide 0.08 standard "will save 600 lives every year."

It hasn't worked that way. The July 2007 issue of Contemporary Economic Policy examined data by Sam Houston State University and concluded, "There's no evidence that lowering the legal level reduced fatality rates."

Regarding laws that raise the legal drinking age to 21 -- laws that I have long opposed on grounds of fairness -- Dempsey writes:

This 21-year-old law has helped the "forbidden fruit" reputation of alcohol, and is linked to an astonishing increase in binge drinking among adolescents and young adults. Drinking to intoxication is the norm for 18-20 year olds, which significantly impairs one's ability to make safe decisions, including the choice to get behind the wheel of an automobile.

When I went to college with an 18-year age-limit on drinking, there was no thought of binge drinking. We had too much fun socializing at lounges, behaving as responsible young adults. We would have been stigmatized otherwise. It could be the same today if we gave our youth a chance. This approach works in the rest of the world.

Our youth are better prepared today because MADD has done a superb job of educating the public of the dangers of drunk driving. But, they are unrelenting and refuse to admit that prohibition never works, causes more reckless drinking and worse, it forces it underground and breeds disrespect for the law.

Dempsey notes that Canadian provinces successfully lowered their drinking ages from 21 to 18 or 19. He notes that the organization "Choose Responsibly" is working to lower the drinking age in the United States.

Taipei Times

Congratulations to Coloradan Mike Williams, whose letter appeared on December 22 in Taipei Times, a publication in English about Taiwan. Williams writes:

...US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Thomas Christensen... continues the Washington realpolitik tradition of preserving the "status quo" at all costs in warning against the dangers of Taiwan's UN referendum.

Even as the US rightly continues to sell advanced weapons systems to Taiwan, it also follows a pragmatic course that protects its financial interests in "one China."

However, Washington's insistence on continuing the current stalemate in cross-strait relations only ensures temporary security for Taiwanese. Tragically, such a policy fails to deal with the long-term, and increasingly severe, consequences of delaying official US and world recognition of the reality that the Republic of China on Taiwan exists as a self-governing country and has a right to do so.

The continuing US foreign policy charade not only leads to Taiwan's acceptance of questionable "friends" such as Yahya Jammeh of Gambia, but also allows Communist China to deploy ever more sophisticated military, economic and political threats against Taiwan, emboldening it to think that it can take such action with the acquiescence of other world powers.

A principled foreign policy would lead the US to openly ally itself with other rights-respecting governments, which would clearly include Taiwan. Of course, such a principled stance is unlikely to emerge out of Washington (or almost any other national capital) today.

In the meantime, the spectacle of Western Europe's condemnation of Taiwan's UN referendum should be carefully considered and not long forgotten by Taiwanese or Americans alike.

Williams recommends Taipei Times as a source of international news.

Christmas Eve

This holiday, my dad and I tried to write about the commonalities among decent people. December 25 has long been the holiday to celebrate new life. Yet we also wanted to acknowledge that some bad people choose death. Prior to this year's celebration, one murderer targeted Christians specifically. We wanted to discuss the significance of this crime in light of the time when Christians and others celebrate the birth of life. Here are a couple of quotes:

Christmas Eve offers a celebration of life

... Christmas Eve is the night of anticipation. It is the night when children sleep anxiously, awaiting the wonders of the new day. It celebrates the night when Joseph sat with Mary in a dirty barn in a strange city, in anguish that this was the best he could offer his young wife as she suffered labor pains with the hopes and the worries that comfort and plague every new mother. It is the night when the wise travel from afar to worship new life, when the very skies seem to sparkle in wonderment at the first breath a baby draws into his lungs. ...

The murderer targeted Christians; he wrote that some Christians "are to blame for most of the problems in the world." This prompted one Christian to reply that "the living God and his followers offend the world, the flesh, and the devil merely by reflecting light in the darkness."

But whatever the problems of Christianity (real or imagined), whatever offense others may find in it, such things are irrelevant to the heinous crime. In a civilized world, people work out their disagreements through rational debate in the public square. In a civilized world, Christians, atheists, Muslims, and others live side by side as neighbors under a political system that protects each individual's rights. ...

Anonymous, Verifiable Voting

Very often I agree with Vincent Carroll. But not this time. In his December 27 column for the Rocky Mountain News, Carroll claims that paper ballots are "18th century technology." He points out that mail ballots are also problematic, as "[e]very unwanted ballot is an invitation to attempted fraud." He concludes the section:

The point is not that mail balloting or paper ballots are rife with fraud and error (although mail balloting is clearly the sloppiest system of all), but that we should weigh relative risks before stampeding out of the electronic arena. After all, if I can buy stock electronically without worry, why should I still have to use a pencil on Election Day?

I agree with Carroll's criticisms of voting by mail, which is why I oppose the practice. Of course, nobody is arguing that we must "use a pencil" to vote; that's just a straw man. The issue is whether the vote should be recorded and counted purely digitally, or whether the vote should be recorded and counted via physical records, such as printed or punched paper. (See my earlier post.)

Following is a quick e-mail that I sent to Carroll:

"After all, if I can buy stock electronically without worry, why should I still have to use a pencil on Election Day?"

The answer to your question is simple. When you buy stock electronically, you can verify the transaction online. You can verify the transaction by phone and by regular mail, if you need to. If somebody steals your stock, you will become aware of this, and you will be prompted to take corrective action.

When I vote electronically with no paper record, I have absolutely no way to know whether my vote was counted at all. Nor do I have any way to know whether my vote was counted as I cast it. What if one or more machines malfunctioned? What if somebody tampered with one or more machines? It's quite possible that absolutely no physical evidence would exist regarding such problems.

True, paper ballots can be "lost," miscounted, or altered. But at least there's a much better chance that such problems will yield physical evidence. Assuming that multiple parties always watch the paper ballots, it's much harder for a single person to change or destroy some of them.

I'm all for modern, mechanical, computerized voting systems. But I also want reliable, verifiable results. And that requires a physical record.

The problem is that voting must be anonymous. Sure, if each voter could cast a digital vote that recorded the identity of the voter, these records could be verified. But nobody doubts the logic behind anonymous voting: it is required to prevent coercion. We don't want union bosses, gang leaders, employers, politicians, or bureaucrats to know how people voted. Yet voting totals must be made public. (On the other hand, Vincent Carroll's stock transactions need not be made public.)

So how do we verify vote totals when each vote must be anonymous? The only way to do it is to allow voters to generate a physical record. It's totally fine for a computer to assist in the process. But, ultimately, the output must be something more tangible than a magnetized blip of a hard drive (or the equivalent). (Has Carroll never suffered a computer error, failure, or virus?) Then, the physical records must be carefully monitored by multiple parties, transported to counting centers (again while monitored and protected), and then counted. Machines can do the counting, so long as the process and the results may be verified by human beings. These physical records must be accessible to legitimately interested parties, subject to proper security.

No form of voting is absolutely fail-safe. But a system of protected and monitored physical records is difficult to abuse, and the magnitude of abuse is bound to be minimized. A purely digital system, on the other hand, allows no method of verifying the vote. Such a system will prove a constant temptation for those clever with machines. Abuse of such a system is virtually guaranteed. And we are unlikely even to learn of abuse when it happens.

Broken Trail

Over the Christmas holiday, I watched the film Broken Trail with family members. It's a two-disk, three-hour movie that was made for television. I get the idea that it was filmed mostly or entirely in Canada, and the scenery is spectacular. The movie, starring Robert Duvall and Thomas Haden Church, is surprisingly good. (I was surprised because I'd never heard of it before.)

It's a classic Western. The two cowboys -- Duvall plays the uncle of Church's character -- leverage the family ranch in order to buy a herd of horses. Their purpose is to move the herd from Oregon to Wyoming, where the horses are in demand for military use. (A major buyer works out of Wyoming.) Along the way, the cowboys must overcome obstacles natural and man-made. Early in their travels, they come across a man who is transporting five young Chinese girls, whose families sold them into slavery. They are on their way to a brothel in a mean town. Needless to say, our heroes do not get on well with the slave runner. But what are a couple of cowboys supposed to do with five girls in a vast wilderness while running horses? Unfortunately, the owner of the brothel wants the seize the girls, and she knows some unsavory characters.

Such a movie easily could have been routine. But interesting dialogue and heartfelt, edgy acting from Duvall and Church make it memorable. It is a movie of strong heroes and dastardly villains, and I like that. But the heroes, with all of their financial resources tied up in the horses, have to struggle with their fears, tempers, and difficult pasts to stick together and find the strength to be towering men. Nicely done.

The movie is available at Netflix and Amazon, I noticed. I plan to buy a copy.

Green by Force

The sort of green of which Ayn Rand approved was the honest earning of money. (Actually, she favored gold, but she would accept greenbacks that actually served as certificates of gold holdings.) But Rand would have had little patience with today's "green" environmentalist movement.

Interestingly, Alternative Energy Retailer published an article based on the comments of Alex Epstein of the Ayn Rand Institute. The basic point of the article is that government ought not subsidize or mandate "alternative" energy. I also found Epstein's following quote interesting:

The purpose of government is the protection of the individual rights of all to their lives, liberty and property. For government action to be justified in response to claims of global warming -- the cause of today's alternative energy infatuation -- it must be scientifically demonstrable, in a court of law, that individuals' burning of carbon fuels will do demonstrable harm to specific individuals through some sort of catastrophic change in weather. The state of evidence regarding global warming today is not even close to that. Even the highly politicized, highly speculative United Nations projections of a gradual, 8-degree-average warming over the next 100 years would be easily dealt with by industrialized people, who have sturdy houses, air conditioners, and sunscreen to cope with heat or bad weather, and ample time to migrate if necessary.

I fear that Epstein is considering a hypothetical without looking at the facts of "greenhouse" gas emissions. If it were the case that some limited number of companies or individuals were emitting most of the emissions, and if those emissions demonstrably harmed others, then the matter would be actionable. However, every single person in the industrialized and semi-industrialized world is contributing to the emissions of "greenhouse" gasses. Any lawsuit would necessarily target some tiny and arbitrarily selected minority of those who emit such gasses. And anyone who might bring such a suit would be a party to the alleged harms. Every person and company that emits "greenhouse" gasses (and every person and company that could possibly file suit) contributes only a miniscule portion of total emissions. Thus, the matter is not properly actionable. That criticism aside, Epstein eloquently states his main point that government force is wrong.

In a December 21 release from the Institute, Keith Lockitch criticizes the new fuel "economy" mandates:

Compelling automakers to achieve higher mileage forces them to compromise automobile safety. To achieve fuel economy, they are forced to make vehicles lighter and smaller. But lighter, smaller vehicles are much more dangerous in an accident. ...

The original Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, imposed in 1975, have already led to a substantial increase in traffic fatalities -- an additional two thousand traffic deaths per year, according to a 2002 study by the National Academy of Sciences. With the new standard, manufacturers will be forced to downsize even further all cars, as well as SUVs and light trucks. ... Nevertheless, environmentalists have continued to fight for higher fuel economy requirements, consistently and cavalierly dismissing the risks and the tragic consequences.

Despite the drumbeat of constant assertions to the contrary, it is far from a settled scientific fact that we face catastrophic dangers from climate change. Yet, under the guise of protecting us from the alleged dangers of global warming, environmentalists force upon us the very real, provable dangers of increased auto injuries and deaths. Clearly, what they value is something other than human well-being.

I'm glad to see that the Institute is offering astute commentary about these issues.

Fred Thompson on Religion

Even though Mitt Romney has lost his momentum and Mike Huckabee seems to have improved his position, I would still be surprised if Huckabee came away with the Republican nomination. It's obvious, though, that Romney's Mormonism is hurting him with some of the Protestants of the right. (His statism, the issue that matters, is hurting him with some.) However, I don't think that Huckabee will find much success in the relatively secular Interior West or on the coasts.

Meanwhile, Fred Thompson's campaign has sputtered out. Nevertheless, his campaign did send me a letter that mentions church and state. (I last recorded Mitt Romney's positions on church and state; link back from there to find additional commentary.) Thompson's letter, dated November 24, offered no details: "I know one challenge that concerns you is about church and state issues. [Or, fill in the blank.] For more information on my policy views, please visit my website at www.Fred08.com." So I did.

Thompson believes (see "Principles"), "A healthy society is predicated on belief in God..." Unsurprisingly, then, Thompson wishes to impose Christian doctrine through politics. Even though he claims (see "On the Issues: Building Strong Families") that he wishes to "advance freedom of religion," elsewhere he makes it clear that what he really wants to advance is religion itself, via political force.

The web page states:

Fred Thompson is pro-life. He believes in the sanctity of human life and that every life is worthy of respect. He had a 100% pro-life voting record in the Senate and believes Roe v. Wade was a bad decision that ought to be overturned. He consistently opposed federal funding to promote or pay for abortion and supported the Partial Birth Abortion Act... While Fred Thompson supports adult stem cell research, he opposes embryonic stem cell research. He also opposes human cloning.

So Thompson wants to outlaw at least most abortions. I don't know whether Thompson would make exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the mother, but his commitment to "every life" seems to include every fertilized egg, regardless of circumstances. Thompson would also forcibly ban some medical research, according to his religious dogma.

Under "Protecting our Kids," Thompson writes, "While censorship is dangerous, obscenity is not legally protected, and laws against it should be vigorously enforced." Unfortunately, nobody has ever offered an objective definition of "obscenity," because there is none. Does anyone wonder where religious conservatives would draw the line, if they controlled prosecutors and the courts? Thompson also writes, "Parents need to be empowered to protect their children from inappropriate matter, whether on TV, in video games, or on the computer." But parents are already so "empowered," simply by virtue of being parents. What more does Thompson have in mind? I'm not sure, but it seems to involve more federal controls.

I could not find whether Thompson supports the spending of tax dollars for religiously-affiliated groups. He does express support for vouchers, which presumably would direct some tax dollars to religious schools.

Obviously, Fred Thompson holds no serious commitment to the separation of church and state -- he instead seeks to forcibly impose religious doctrine. Therefore, I will not vote for Fred Thompson for any office, under any circumstances.

The Bulb Ban

Paul Hsieh wrote an especially good (if depressing) post December 19 titled, "Outlawing the Traditional Incandescent Light Bulb." He quotes four news articles and offers his own comments:

The new energy bill (passed by Congress and just signed into law by President Bush) will outlaw the traditional incandescent light bulbs over the next several years, requiring instead more expensive "energy efficient" bulbs as part of the fight against global warming. Of course, if these new bulbs are more cost-effective in the long run, then there's no need to mandate their use. And if they aren't, then this is just another burden on consumers. Either way, it's a violation of the individual rights of producers and consumers of those products.

This is on top of the recent shameful capitulation by the US on global warming policy at the recent international Bali conference, in which the US gave into the demands of the rest of the world.

Those who think that the Republicans and/or the religious conservatives will provide any kind of principled defense against the anti-reason and anti-human views of the environmentalists are in for a rude awakening. ...

Although I'm sure it's unintentional, I find it ironic that the environmentalists and the evangelicals are teaming up to extinguish Thomas Edison's incandescent light bulb, the long-time symbol of reason and thought.

By the way, I have purchased the energy-efficient bulbs for my house. Costco sells them for a reasonable price, and I believe that they cost me a little less to operate. But the idea of the federal government dictating to us what sort of light bulbs we may buy is ridiculous and offensive. If the federal government can force us to buy the bulbs that politicians decide are good for us, then there is, in principle, hardly anything that the federal government cannot force us to do.

Peikoff's Fourth Podcast

On December 11, Leonard Peikoff issued his fourth podcast, in which he answers questions about Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand.

Peikoff takes on four questions in that installment. First, what does Objectivism have to say about having and raising children? Peikoff briefly describes how parents can help their children develop physically, morally, and intellectually. Second, what is the moral status of labor unions, and, more generally, how should one function in a world with widespread government controls? Third, what is the relationship between the alleviation of pain and moral standards? Finally, are individual preferences in music subjective?

Those unfamiliar with the ideas of Rand and Peikoff will likely find the podcasts an accessible source for some basic applications of the philosophy.

Computer History Museum

Those who created the computer technology that now helps us in virtually every aspect of our lives are heroes of production. The Computer History Museum is dedicated to preserving and telling the history of that development. Thanks to a reader of GeekPress.com, I found a video that introduces the museum.

My first computer was a Commodore 128, with twice the capacity of the popular Commodore 64. The "128" refers to the 128 kilobytes of RAM packed into the then-amazing machine. The computer on which I am now typing contains two gigabytes of memory. If I'm doing the math right, that means that my current machine has around 15,000 times the memory capacity of my first machine.

My first experience with digital storage was a tape drive -- as in a regular ol' cassette tape recorder. Then we went to 5.25 inch floppies, then 3.5 inch floppies, then "zip" floppies. Now new computers don't even come with floppy drives. Some 5.25 disks held 1.2 megabytes of material. The DVD drive that I now own uses disks that hold 4.7 gigabytes of material. Again, if I'm doing the math right, the new laser disks hold about 4,000 times as much material as the old magnetic disks held.

My first experiment with computer communications involved stringing a phone line from the kitchen phone to my bedroom so that I could call a local server with my 300 baud modem. A couple of times I even called a computer in California, but that meant long-distance telephone charges. Now I'm blogging at connection speeds so fast that only video seems slow.

To the men and women who have made my life so much better by improving computer technology, I offer my thanks.

Voting Machines

Some of us have worried about "black box" voting by which a voter touches a screen and the data are stored on a hard drive only. This digital-only voting creates two potential problems. First, a system error or breakdown could result in lost or altered data, and the alteration might not ever be detected. Second, digital-only voting opens the door to abuse by hackers.

I favor a system in which the voter leaves a "hard" (paper) record that the voter verifies, and then the vote is taken from the hard records. (Alternately, the vote may be taken from a digital copy of the records, so long as interested parties are able to access the paper records to verify the vote count.) No system is totally immune from abuse; paper records can be stolen and altered. But at least there's a better chance that physical evidence of the act will remain.

Yesterday (December 17) State Senator Ken Gordon forwarded a news release from Mike Coffman about Colorado's voting machines. While Coffman's office has not, so far as I can tell, addressed the basic concerns about all-digital voting, at least it has subjected the state's voting machines to more testing:

News Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MEDIA CONTACT: Rich Coolidge

Dec. 17, 2007 (303) 860-6903

Coffman completes electronic voting equipment tests

Premier Voting Systems - only system certified completely by state

Denver, Colorado – Today, Secretary of State Mike Coffman issued his findings from a court-mandated retesting of electronic voting equipment often referred to as "recertification." In September 2006, a district court judge had ruled, in Conroy vs. Dennis, that the certification process used by the Secretary of State's office was inadequate and that the voting equipment had to be retested before the 2008 primary election. Under state law, all electronic voting equipment purchased after May 2004 has to be tested and certified by the Secretary of State’s office after being federally certified.

"My job, as the Secretary of State, is to follow the law and the law requires my office to test the electronic voting equipment used in Colorado to make sure that these systems are secure and can accurately count every vote as set forth by the standards established in state law and mandated by a court order," said Coffman.

Under state law, the clerks and the vendors of decertified equipment will have up to 30 days to formally "Request a Reconsideration" of Coffman’s decisions. The legislature, when it convenes next month, can also decide to modify the requirements set forth in the state’s certification law to allow decertified equipment to be used in the 2008 election. On Wednesday and Thursday, Coffman’s staff will meet with the clerks and the vendors who have decertified equipment for a detailed technical briefing of the testing results and the factors leading to decertification.

"I had to strictly follow the law along with the court order," said Coffman. "If I’m too lenient in determining what passes then I risk having the state taken to court by activists groups who will ask for an injunction on the use of electronic voting machines for the 2008 election, and if I exceed the requirements of state law and the court order, then I will be sued by the vendors who manufacture and sell the equipment."

Coffman carefully reviewed the process for certifying electronic voting equipment used in 2006 and made dramatic changes, which include three additional layers of technical experts reviewing the tests results. He instituted a testing board composed of four technical experts to decide the passage or failure of individual tests, and an outside audit of technical experts to review the testing process, as well as making sure that the results matched the tests. He also engaged the cyber security experts from state government to also review and comment on the security testing.

Coffman’s decisions:

Premier (formally known as Diebold) All voting equipment submitted for recertification passed.

Sequoia The optical scan devices, Insight and 400-C, used to count paper ballots both passed, but the electronic voting machines, the Edge II and the Edge II Plus, both failed due to a variety of security risk factors, including that the system is not password protected, has exposed controls potentially giving voters unauthorized access, and lacks an audit trail to detect security violations.

Hart The optical scan devices, eScan and BallotNow, both failed because test results showed that they could not accurately count ballots. The electronic voting machine, eSlate, passed.

ES&S The optical scan devices (M 100 and the M650) both failed because of an inability to determine if the devices work correctly and an inability to complete the testing threshold of 10,000 ballots due to vendor programming errors. The electronic voting machine (iVotronic) failed because it is easily disabled by voters activating the device interface, and the system lacks an audit trail to detect security violations.

Gordon added:

Today the Secretary of State announced the result of his electronic voting machine testing. ... He decertified electronic voting machines from three of the four national vendors affecting dozens of Colorado counties including Denver, Jefferson, Arapahoe, Mesa and Pueblo.

Tomorrow I am going to hold a legislative hearing where the Secretary of State will present his findings and recommendations. This is the first step toward legislation to ensure that all Coloradans can vote and that their votes are counted accurately.

It is too early to know what legislation will be necessary. ...

Hsieh on Moral Responsibility

"I couldn't help it." We hear that a lot, but it's rarely true in those cases in which it's invoked.

Diana Hsieh (of NoodleFood) has placed her prospectus, "Moral Responsibility and Moral Luck," on her web page. (You can also read it in pieces through her blog starting with December 10.) The paper is basically a proposal for her doctoral dissertation, so it does not necessarily present her arguments in their final form.

Hsieh lays out the conditions under which a person should be held morally accountable for his or her actions. She also explains why various factors, such as most childhood experiences, do not absolve an adult of responsibility. If you're not as concerned with the academic debate, you might want to jump to page 22, "Moral Responsibility." In this section, Hsieh outlines the basic requirements for moral responsibility, drawing upon the theories of Aristotle.

Corn Gas

This video has its silly moments, but it makes its point: corn gas -- i.e., ethanol -- isn't a very good idea, except by the "standard" of rewarding special interests. The link takes you to YouTube.

Corn in the Tank
by Patrick Reasonover, Molly Thrasher, and John Thrasher

Kopel on Media-Inspired Copy-Cats

Dave Kopel's article for the Rocky Mountain News, "Reducing the risk of copycat killers: How papers can avoid glorifying perpetrators," deserves a wide audience. Here are his five main suggestions:

1. If a killer was seeking infamy, neither his picture nor his words should ever appear on the front page. ...

2. ... [If] photos help readers understand that people who do terrible things are often very ordinary-looking... a single photo on a single day is sufficient.

3. Never run a photo or video which the killer has chosen for his own publicity. ...

4. Do publish a photo showing the disgusting post-mortem condition of the killer, with half his face blown off after he has killed himself or been shot by a good citizen. The photo should appear, not in the printed paper, but on the newspaper's Web site and behind a warning page. Such photos would deglamourize the perpetrators.

5. Although there is some news value in reporting the killer's name initially, there is no need to use the name incessantly. ...

Vet Seeks Return of Medical Marijuana

I thought this was a fun media release:

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2007

*****MEDIA ADVISORY*****

DESERT STORM VET TO SEEK RETURN OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA

CENTENNIAL, COLORADO—Today the Arapahoe District Attorney dismissed criminal charges against Kevin Dickes, a State-certified medical marijuana patient and Desert Storm vet. The case had garnered widespread media attention. Monday, Mr. Dickes and his lawyer Robert J. Corry, Jr. will file a motion for return of medical marijuana after today’s dismissal of felony charges. The motion will be filed on December 17, 2007 at 11:00 a.m. in Arapahoe District Court. The Colorado Constitution provides an exception to criminal laws regarding marijuana for registered Medical Marijuana patients.

“This is a victory for compassion and for the voters of Colorado,” said Mr. Corry, “We commend the District Attorney for doing the right thing and dismissing criminal charges, now Mr. Dickes needs his medicine back unharmed as the Colorado Constitution requires, or just compensation thereof.”

Dickes, who suffers from chronic vascular disease and extreme pain from combat injuries suffered during the first Gulf War in 1991, had a physician’s recommendation and a State-issued registry card for medical marijuana.

WHAT: Kevin Dickes and his attorney, Robert Corry, Jr., will file a motion for return of medical marijuana.

WHEN: 11:00 a.m., Monday, December 17, 2007.

WHERE: Arapahoe District Court, 7325 S. Potomac Street, Centennial, CO

Islamist Violence Against Women

The UK's Independent published the following report:

'Westernised' women being killed in Basra
By Sinan Salaheddin in Baghdad
Published: 11 December 2007

Religious extremists have killed at least 40 women this year in Basra because of their "un-Islamic" dress, according to Iraqi police.

The police said women were being apprehended by men patrolling on motorbikes or in cars with tinted windows before being murdered and dumped in piles of rubbish with notes saying they were killed for "un-Islamic behaviour". He said men had been victims of similar attacks.

Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the rise of Iraq's Shia-dominated government, armed men have forced women to cover their heads or face punishment. In parts of the predominantly Shia south, even Christian women have been forced to wear headscarves. In some areas of Basra, graffiti warns women that forgoing the headscarf and wearing make-up "will bring you death".

Where to begin? Such religiously motivated behavior is disgusting, reprehensible, horrible. And the story serves as a reminder that Bush's "forward strategy for freedom" hasn't worked out so well.

Assam's Semiautomatic Baretta

Yesterday, I noted that security guards are forbidden by Colorado Springs ordinance from carrying semiautomatic guns. Yet "Police investigators also said Wednesday that Jeanne Assam, the church security officer who shot and wounded [the murderer], fired a total of 10 rounds from her Beretta 9 mm semiautomatic handgun." Presumably, had she been a security guard for hire, rather than a volunteer, she would have been breaking the law. (I haven't read the ordinance, but I assume it applies only to guards for hire. I did check the map, and New Life Church is within Colorado Springs boundaries.)

Predictably, Democrats are already demanding bans of politically incorrect, ambiguously defined "assault weapons." Gail Shoettler displays her ignorance in confusing semiautomatic guns with "automatic weapons." She does not bother to define an "assault weapon." She does not consider the fact that many criminals acquire guns illegally. And she does not bother to mention that Assam stopped the murderer with her semiautomatic gun.

Meanwhile, Mike Littwin opines, "Any fair reading of the small minority of people who use guns violently shows that they are rarely deterred by other guns." In other words, Littwin looks only at cases of people who are not "deterred by other guns" to conclude that no criminal is so deterred. (He does not mention the fact that some criminals are not "deterred by other guns" because in some areas armed self-defense is outlawed.) And this is what sometimes passes for journalism in Colorado.

Yet the fact remains that the murderer was not able to fully carry out his plans because he met armed resistance. Otherwise, he might have killed many more. Even people bent on suicidal mass murder may think twice knowing they may be taken out by a petite woman with a gun.

Electa Draper writes for The Denver Post,

Many large churches have taken up arms. ... Like New Life, which has a volunteer plainclothes security force of about a dozen, other area megachurches also employ security to respond to trouble in places where as many as 7,000 might be on campus at any time. ... American Jews have long recognized the need for security at their synagogues, schools and community centers.

Obviously, criminals are not "deterred by other guns" that the do not suspect exist. Now, would-be criminals know that attacking people in a house of religious worship may not be quite as easy as they might have imagined.

Hamstringing Security Guards

I could hardly believe this:

Springs to consider new gun law
Pam Zubeck and Perry Swanson, The Gazette
Originally published 08:12 a.m., December 12, 2007
Updated 08:12 a.m., December 12, 2007

Colorado Springs City Council members will consider a law next month to allow security guards to carry semiautomatic weapons.

Although the change has been in the works for months, the revision is sure to draw added interest in light of Sunday’s shootings at New Life Church.

City Clerk Kathryn Young... said the proposed measure would allow semiautomatic weapons; the current ordinance limits security guards to revolvers.

Should we say that security guards also don't have to work with one hand tied behind their back? Revolvers are fine firearms, but I know of few gun enthusiast who would choose to enter a scrape with a revolver over a quality semiauto with a couple of spare magazines. That said, given a quality firearm, skill counts more than the type of gun (within limits); a good shooter can get shots on target with a revolver much faster than a poor shooter can with a semiautomatic.

Does anyone know what kind of gun Jeanne Assam used?

Larry Bourbonnais

We now know that the church murderer "was shot multiple times by church security officer Jeanne Assam before he fired a single, fatal round at himself, the autopsy showed."

We also know that the murderer drew inspiration from the Columbine killers: "My belief is that if I say something, it goes. I am the law. If you don't like it, you die." This is moral subjectivism taken to its most nihilistic and murderous conclusions.

We also have the comments of Larry Bourbonnais, another person who showed great courage at the scene. The words of Bourbonnais, a Vietnam veteran, are recorded by the Rocky Mountain News:

After Columbine, I promised my daughters that if I'm ever in that kind of situation, that I would do something. Instead of standing by while people are being slaughtered, people need to take action.

There were two other armed guards, but they weren't doing anything. I asked one of them to give me their gun so I could take the guy out. I thought, I've got to take this guy out. I stepped out from behind a pillar so he could see me, then I saw a female come from outside.

I was either being heroic or stupid. But I was afraid the guy would shoot me from the back. I just kept thinking I wanted to take him out.

After she shot him dead, I took a 9 millimeter gun out of his right hand. It was jammed. There was a round stuck.

He was bleeding from his back. The guy was an idiot. He was standing along a wall of plate glass. She took him out. It all happened so fast.

They made me go outside because I was a key witness. I saw a male victim. The EMT had taken his clothes off. He was cold and in a lot of pain.

Two of my daughters, Stacey and Sherry, met me at the hospital. They brought me a coat and a shirt. I told them about the promise I made to them and that I tried. They were crying.

If he had killed me, I would have gone to heaven.

I haven't read elsewhere about two other armed guards. Yet, assuming that the account is basically accurate, it demonstrates a couple of things. First, the shadow of Columbine is very long. Second, people reacted to that horror in dramatically different ways. One deranged individual committed a copy-cat crime. Others resolved to rise to heroism, should the situation call for it. The names that deserve to be remembered in this case are those of Jeanne Assam and Larry Bourbonnais.

Bill of Rights Day

From the Colorado Freedom Report (originally published by Grand Junction Free Press:)

Amend your schedule to celebrate Bill of Rights Day

... Not everyone enjoys legal protections of their fundamental rights. Take, for instance, the story of Gillian Gibbons, a teacher from England who was working in Sudan. As The New York Times reported, Gibbons "was found guilty... of insulting Islam and sentenced to 15 days in jail and deportation. Under Sudanese law... Gibbons could have spent six months in jail and been lashed 40 times." ...

Unfortunately, our rights of free speech are eroding even here in the United States. The left, which often pretends to champion free speech and occasionally even does so, increasingly calls for censorship when it comes to radio broadcasts and political campaigns. Incredibly, the left calls its censorship "the Fairness Doctrine." By "fairness," the left means that government bureaucrats will force owners of radio stations to offer "equal time" to the left -- as defined by those bureaucrats -- or else. With the help of President Bush, the left has also censored select political speech prior to elections.

But the right wing is no better and very often worse. Some on the right wish to censor what it deems to be obscene or pornographic. (We're not talking about cases involving the abuse of children, which are not instances of free speech and which should be criminally prosecuted.) The problem is that when government bureaucrats and/or judges get to decide which naked pictures constitute art and which pornography, they cannot possibly issue objective rulings. Moreover, any censorship undermines the principle of free speech. If politicians and their bureaucratic thugs can forcibly stop you from looking at dirty pictures, why should they not also stop you from looking at dirty text? ...

(Read the entire article.)

Rocky Mountain Sense

The editorial writers of the Rocky Mountain News wrote an especially touching piece for today's paper titled, "Lethal rage." The editorial mourns the victims, sympathizes with their families, and praises Jeanne Assam, the volunteer, armed security guard who stopped the murderer. The Rocky even managed to close with appropriate advice about keeping perspective:

[V]iolence in our society can sometimes seem to be pervasive. Yet while that is true, as Sunday's events prove, it's important that we not exaggerate its frequency. During this decade, the homicide rate in the United States (per 100,000 people) has actually been lower than at any time since the early and mid-1960s - and far lower than the 25 years between 1970 to 1995.

Such dry statistics are no consolation to anyone remotely near to this weekend's tragedies, but they offer perspective the rest of us should bear in mind.

While The Denver Post's editorial is predictably cliche, it does include the following important detail:

Larry Bourbonnais, a Vietnam veteran who was at the church as the incident unfolded, heard the shots and ran toward the gunfire.

He yelled to divert the gunman's attention and was shot in the arm.

Then, Jeanne Assam, a female security guard, came around the corner with a handgun drawn, yelling, "Surrender!" She walked toward the shooter, firing one round after another until he went down.

And some sentiments never seem cliche in such circumstances: "[T]he only way to pull through these trying times is by coming together as a well-knit community."

Yesterday's Hero

One difference between the recent shooting at the mall in Omaha and the religious facilities in Colorado is that, in Omaha, the murderer stopped himself (before the police could reach him). As Laura Bauer reports for the December 8 Kansas City Star, the murderer "opened fire at the mall, killing eight before taking his own life."

Yesterday's murderous rampage ended differently. Kieran Nicholson reports for today's Denver Post:

The two killed at [New Life Church] are sisters Stephanie Works, 18, and Rachael Works, 16, police said. ... Also shot at the church Sunday were David Works, 51, Judy Purcell, 40, and Larry Bourbannais, 59, police said. ...

The shooter was shot and killed by a volunteer security guard at the church, said [Pastor Brady] Boyd.

Boyd said the security guard, a woman with a law enforcement background, and his personal bodyguard, encountered the gunman in a hallway at the church and fired on him, saving many lives.

"He had enough ammunition on him to cause a lot of damage," Boyd said.

The security guard's name has not yet been released.

Whatever else can and will be said about the murders, that woman, the volunteer security guard, is a true, courageous hero who deserves our thanks and praise.

I'm also impressed that Nicholson and the Post fairly reported the facts. However, it is odd that Nicholson refers to the murderer as "gunman," but she does not refer to the security guard as a "gunwoman." (Indeed, while the media are filled with references to "gunmen," I do not remember every reading the term, "gunwoman.") Bauer also refers to "a gunman." But the relevant fact is not that the man carried a gun, but that he used it to murder people. Thus, he is properly called a killer or a murderer. The bare fact that a man carries a gun -- is a "gunman" -- is legally and morally neutral. Police officers, security guards, and numerous civilians, both male and female, carry guns legally and responsibly.

But of course the means of murder is the minor issue. The big question is this: why are moral monsters running around murdering innocent people they don't even know? Any murder is a heinous crime, the ultimate evil. But a murder of strangers adds an additional level of senselessness. Some will find symbolism in the fact that the murderer attacked a church; they will see the murders as a symptom of our (allegedly) Godless culture (though religion is on the rise). The religionists are correct that the murders are a symptom of cultural nihilism, the destruction of human reason, values, and morality. But the antidote to nihilism is not religion, which sacrifices human reason to faith and human values to the whims of a mythological being. A culture of human reason, values, and morality rejects both nihilism and religion.

Romney's Religion

Recently Mark Udall, candidate for U.S. Senate, sent me a letter in which he endorsed the separation of church and state. Now Mitt Romney has given a speech on the subject of faith. At a superficial level, Romney also endorses the separation of church and state:

"We separate church and state affairs in this country, and for good reason. No religion should dictate to the state nor should the state interfere with the free practice of religion."

However, generic endorsements of the separation of church and state are inadequate. Just as anyone can proclaim support for a contentless version of "freedom," so can everyone but an out-and-out theocrat generically proclaim support for the separation of church and state. That is why, in my letter to candidates, I asked for replies to specific questions regarding abortion, stem cell research, and tax funding of religious groups and doctrine.

In his speech, Romney explicitly calls for tax funding of religious teaching:

The founders proscribed the establishment of a state religion, but they did not countenance the elimination of religion from the public square. We are a nation "Under God" and in God, we do indeed trust.

We should acknowledge the Creator as did the Founders -- in ceremony and word. He should remain on our currency, in our pledge, in the teaching of our history, and during the holiday season, nativity scenes and menorahs should be welcome in our public places. Our greatness would not long endure without judges who respect the foundation of faith upon which our constitution rests. I will take care to separate the affairs of government from any religion, but I will not separate us from "the God who gave us liberty" (emphasis added).

In other words, Romney does not wish to spend tax funds to promote the particular doctrines of, say, Mormonism or Catholicism; he merely wishes to spend tax funds to teach children in "the public square" about the God common to the Judeo-Christian-Muslim tradition.

This reminds me of the speech delivered by Leonard Peikoff in 1986 (and published as "Religion Versus America" in Ayn Rand's The Voice of Reason.) Peikoff said:

"If prayer is said aloud [in tax-funded schools]," [Jack Kemp] explains, "it need be no more than a general acknowledgment of the existence, power, authority, and love of God, the Creator." That's all -- nothing controversial or indoctrinating about that! (page 78)

Romney said, "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone." For a refutation of Romney's claim, see Peikoff's article.

Romney's comment reminded me of something that Laura Ingraham said at a recent banquet. She said that without a particularly religious virtue, "you can kiss the free market goodbye." It is obvious that Romney and Ingraham think that religion must come before freedom. Will it then surprise anyone when they and their fellow travelers decide it's okay to sacrifice "just a little" freedom for the cause of religion?

Elsewhere Romney states that he wishes to outlaw nearly all abortions, restrict medical research, expand censorship of (ambiguously defined) "obscenity," and spend tax dollars on "faithbased groups." Various religious leaders in this country have advocated the complete ban of all abortions, more spending of tax dollars on religious groups and instruction, censorship of "pornography," and so forth.

Romney's claim that "religion requires freedom" is obviously false; for example, religion thrived for century after century in the brutally oppressive Egyptian empires and Middle Ages. Freedom does not require religion, though it defends freedom of religion -- and freedom from religion. What freedom requires is that religious leaders abstain from forcing their theology onto others. Despite his generic statement to the contrary, Romney has demonstrated that he wishes to sacrifice freedom to religion. And that is why I will never cast a vote for Mitt Romney for any office, under any circumstances.

Moral Health Care

Colorado's own Lin Zinser and Paul Hsieh, MD, have written an article for The Objective Standard titled, "Moral Health Care vs. 'Universal Health Care'." The journal has made the article available at no cost to all comers.

Hsieh summarizes:

Lin Zinser and I have written an article on health care history and policy that will be appearing in the Winter 2007-2008 issue of The Objective Standard...

We argue that the current crisis in American health care is the result of decades of government interference and violations of individual rights in health insurance and medicine. Hence the solution to the problem is not more government controls but instead to gradually and systematically transition to a rights-respecting, fully free market in those industries.

Also, Yaron Brook and Keith Lockitch have written an article on the same theme for Modern Health Care. The article argues:

The notion that America has a private, free-market medical system is a widespread misconception. More than 45% of total spending on healthcare in 2004 was government spending. Our semisocialist blend of Medicare, Medicaid and government-controlled, employer-sponsored health plans-with its onerous system of regulations and controls on medical providers-is the opposite of a free market.

To date, I have not heard a single defender of politically-controlled medicine even attempt to counter the arguments of Zinser, Hsieh, Brook, Lockitch, and fellow travelers. Instead, those whining for more political interference in medicine simple ignore the fact that political interference is the cause of modern problems in American health care. Let us work to assure that the articles proving the point are widely read.

Harsanyi Moves to Editorial

I don't know whether David Harsanyi is happy about the move or not, but I hope it works to his advantage. The Denver Post announced today that Harsanyi, who has been writing columns for the paper's news section, will join the editorial team. The article announces:

... David Harsanyi... will move to the Post's op-ed pages. ...

Harsanyi, who joined The Post's staff in May 2004, in part to provide some ideological balance to [former columnist Diane] Carman and then-columnist Jim Spencer, has done his job well, Moore said. Often offering a libertarian "live and let live" take on the policies and practices emanating from city hall and the statehouse, he also has roamed the city for interesting tales of regular folks rubbing up against unforgiving bureaucracies or just plain silliness, Moore said.

His new book, "Nanny State," is a critique of efforts by local, state and federal governments to regulate numerous aspects of our lives.

I am a bit worried about the phrase, "op-ed pages." Does that mean that Harsanyi will have no input in the paper's editorials? Whether or not he helps decide and write the content of editorials, will he write frequent articles under his own name? If the purpose of the move is to balance out the Post's often-shrill left-wing politics, then that's great. But I hope the point is not to limit Harsanyi's voice on the paper.

Meanwhile, William Porter will write a column for the news side. He promises, "I plan to write slice-of-life columns about Denver and the state. No screeds. No term papers. Stories." In other words, he plans to write non-ideological soap-opera-style stories. That's great -- that means that I can safely ignore yet another section of the paper. But we'll see if his columns in fact become ideological pitches that pretend not to be.

Government Property

Yesterday FaceTheState.com, which sends out a useful list of Colorado news articles every day, linked to two stories that caught my eye. FaceTheState.com described the stories this way: CU students and faculty no fan of freedom - most favor ban on smoking, outside, and Mesa libraries take heat for atheist display.

Here's some of the language from those articles, published by the Rocky Mountain News (originally by Boulder's Daily Camera) and Grand Junction's Daily Sentinel, respectively:

According to the results of an unscientific survey conducted across CU's campuses and administrative offices, a narrow majority - 51.5 percent - of respondents said they think the school should ban all tobacco use on the campuses. Smoking indoors already is prohibited.

The survey was in response to CU Regent Michael Carrigan's proposal to ban smoking altogether. Results were released Thursday.

***

State of disbelief
Atheists say display shows different concept; library patron upset at having to wait to present rebuttal

By BOBBY MAGILL
The Daily Sentinel
Saturday, December 01, 2007

"We imagine a world without religion," declares a display posted by Western Colorado Atheists on Saturday in the back stairwell of the Mesa County Public Library. ...

The atheists' display is simple, composed of mostly letter-sized sheets of paper answering questions about atheism, quoting dead presidents about the virtues of questioning faith and outlining what the group views as the pitfalls of religion: hate, corruption, scandal and violence. ...

The atheists' display was approved by the library earlier this year and assigned the entire month of December for posting. ...

Anderson, who posted a display in the same space last February criticizing gay people, same-sex families and others as hell-bound if they don't make right with God, said the library is getting itself into trouble by not allowing her to post her poster-sized Christian display the same day the atheists posted theirs.

My position on these issues, given the existence of tax-funded colleges and libraries, is that smoking ought not be banned outside and that all comers should have the same opportunity to display their message at the library.

However, my deeper position is that neither colleges nor libraries should be funded with taxes -- that is, funded with money forcibly taken by those who may not wish to fund those institutions or their particular projects.

Whether smoking is banned on a property, either inside or outside, should be entirely up to the property owners. But who are the property owners at a state-funded college? Everyone and no one. Banning smoking violates the rights of people who want to smoke, while allowing smoking violates the rights of those who find the smoke irritating. FaceTheState.com is wrong to claim that the issue is about "freedom." Don't the writers of FaceTheState.com believe they have the right to ban smoking in their own back yards? The problem is that freedom has already been violated. Specifically, people's freedom to control their own income is violated when they are forced to fund the college. The violation of rights has already occurred. An outdoor smoking ban would not constitute an additional violation of rights. If the owners of a private school wish to ban smoking outside on their property, that is their right.

Should a tax-funded library open up display areas to Islamists who praise the bombing of the World Trade Center? Should Satanists also get a turn? If a tax-funded institution forcibly takes money from Islamists and Satanists, then those groups (arguably) should be granted equal footing with Christians and atheists. Absurd? If so, then the absurdity is created by the nature of tax funding, which inherently violates people's rights. In a library that obtained all it's money from voluntary contributions, this problem would not arise. People would give their money on the understanding that some person or board makes the decisions as the legitimate property holder. If the library offends people, then they are free to withdraw their funding. Such a library might decide to allow no religious displays or only religious displays within certain boundaries. For example, a library might allow Christian, atheist, and peace-promoting Muslim displays, but ban America-hating Islamist and Satanic displays. The point is that the property owner, whether an individual, a corporation, or a non-profit entity, has the right to control the property. When "the public" funds an enterprise through political force, that means that "the public" owns it, which means that rights can never be clearly decided.

Stranger than Fiction

Recently my wife and I put Babel in the DVD player. We were treated to a preview of another movie, I think called Perfume, in which the main character murders women and turns them into perfume. Lovely. So I was already psyched for Babel. In the early scenes of that movie, a young boy in a desolate land masturbates on a cliff, then shoots a bus with his family's new rifle. That was enough for me. We popped out the video. I had already seen the preview, so I got the idea that the next two hours of the film are devoted to the husband of the shooting victim trying to find help for his wife. No thank you, and again I thank you.

Thankfully, we had also rented Stranger than Fiction, which I thoroughly enjoyed even more than I had on a previous viewing. Will Farrell is a genius actor of physical comedy. In this film, Farrell plays an IRS agent who initially leads an entirely routine life devoid of meaningful values. Then, one day, he begins to hear a narrator describing his life. As he anxiously tries to figure out what's going on, he begins to reevaluate his life and do the meaningful things that he truly wants to do. I like the movie because it is bright and positive and caring and funny -- all of the things banned from so many other Hollywood movies these days.

We also watched an old film called Executive Suite. I forget who recommended it. It is another film we truly appreciated. Yes, it's a bit dated; all the executives are white males (and all served by female secretaries) and the title sequence is quite jarring. Yet it is spectacularly acted and well written. It's the story of the struggle to replace the head executive of a furniture company after he dies. Contrary to Oliver Stone's commentary -- and I have no idea why his commentary appears on the video, as he had nothing to do with the film -- the film is not a critique of business profits. (I listened only to a few minutes of his commentary.) Instead, the film is about producing something of quality, something you can believe in and sell with pride, and something that will serve the company's long-term success, not just its short-sighted balance sheet of the month. There are a some problems with the ideas conveyed by the writing. For example, three of the seven executives are quite horrible, which is more than any business could plausibly sustain, and the other four are overly tolerant of their behavior. Nevertheless, the climactic speech is among the most rousing and morally inspiring conclusions to any movie I've seen. Furniture boring? Not in this film.

Another Look at Blue Laws

David Harsanyi of The Denver Post wrote a fine article for today calling for the repeal of the blue laws -- the prohibition of Sunday liquor sales at stores -- as well as the restrictions on grocery-store sales of liquor and liquor-store sales of food.

But not everybody is convinced. On November 30 I received the following e-mail:

Dear Sir,

I recently opened a liquor store (March 2007) in Pueblo, CO. I am not a rich man. I have my life savings and a 2nd mortgage on my home invested in my modest, one employee (me) store. I have been working 6 days a week 13hrs a day for 8.5 months to make this place a success. It will be another year before I recoup all of my start-up losses.

Wine accounts for 50% of my sales, Beer accounts for about 35%. I am in a plaza with a King Soopers 100' from my door. I had to sign a 5yr lease to get this location. I started this store under existing laws. I've staked my future on it. I'm 53 years old.

If the Blue Laws are repealed and Grocer's are allowed to sell wine and beer that is not 3.2%, I will be ruined. I could not compete with their buying power and and their employee base that would allow them to stay open 16hrs/7days. I will lose my life's savings and my house.

Can you explain to me how your desire to buy wine on Sunday in a grocery store, justifies ruining my life?

Sincerely,
Randall Tierney
Turtles Wine & Spirits
Pueblo, CO

Following is my reply:

The simple fact is that, by sanctioning the blue laws and related statutes, you are violating the individual rights of other store owners and customers in this state. Whether or not the repeal of the blue laws and related liquor laws inconveniences you, those laws are morally wrong. According to the logic of your excuses, no protectionist law (or any unjust law) may ever be repealed, for those protected by political force would lose their unjust advantage over others. Your argument amounts to the claim that the unjust redistribution of wealth in the past warrants unjust redistribution of wealth in the future.

Moreover, you went into business knowing about the existing blue (and related) laws, and if you performed due diligence then you also know that people have been trying to repeal those laws for years. If you did not plan for the possibility of a change in those laws, then you simply didn't do your homework, and you should not force others to suffer continued injustice to pay for your lack of foresight.

Nevertheless, I simply do not believe your claim that the repeal of the blue (and related) laws will necessarily ruin you financially. Can't you compete on service and selection to fill a niche market? If you cannot compete on an open market -- if you do require the force of politicians to harm your would-be competitors -- then you do not deserve to be in business. On the other hand, if you can persuade customers to do businesses with you even when they are free to do business with all other stores willing to sell to them, then -- and only then -- will you have earned your success.

What Welfare Encourages

In Atlas Shrugged, Dagny Taggart hears the story of a man who lived through a localized scheme of pure collectivism, in which the doctrine, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need," was the rule. The man tells her:

It didn't take us long to see how it all worked out. Any man who tried to play straight, had to refuse himself everything. He lost his taste for any pleasure... He felt ashamed of every mouthful of food he swallowed, wondering whose weary nights of overtime had paid for it, knowing that his food was not his by right, miserably wishing to be cheated rather than to cheat... [H]e couldn't marry or bring children into the world, when he could plan nothing, promise nothing, count on nothing. But the shiftless and the irresponsible had a field day of it. They bred babies... they got more sickness than any doctor could disprove, they ruined their clothing, their furniture, their homes -- what the hell, "the family" was paying for it! They found more ways of getting in "need" than the rest of us could ever imagine -- they developed a special skill for it, which was the only ability they showed. (pages 619-20)

Or, in economic terms, "You get more of what you subsidize."

We do not live under pure collectivism; we live under a welfare state, in which a minority of our income is forcibly redistributed to others. But, to the extent that we live under the same principle, do we see the same effects? As I've suggested, we do indeed.

Religious Mountain News

Diana Hsieh writes that "tithing [as] a subject of public discussion in a well-respected national newspaper still floors me." Yet at least a letter to the editor is in the editorial section. The Rocky Mountain News, whether by design or by accident, seems to be pandering to religious readers more often in news articles.

For example, I recently quoted a News article that begins, "Kristi Burton was just 13 when she asked God for guidance and got it." Whether or not the author of the article actually believes that Burton received guidance from God, the line taken at face value presumes that she did.

Here's another example:

Lotto win forestalls foreclosure
The Gazette
Originally published 12:30 a.m., November 27, 2007
Updated 11:50 a.m., November 27, 2007

As the Bible says: "Whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive."

Gloria Aguda, of Fountain, said she prayed to God for help, facing foreclosure and mounting bills. She won the jackpot in the Nov. 21 Lotto drawing, worth approximately $9 million.

The article, credited to the Gazette, appeared on the Rocky's web page (though I'm not sure whether it also appeared in print). Again, taken at face value, the opening suggests that God played some role in the jackpot (which is ridiculous even from a religious perspective).

The Rocky has also reported on various occasions that victims of various accidents and tragedies thanked God for a relatively good outcome. However, the Rocky has not once mentioned why God allowed the tragedies in the first place, nor why others who pray to God nevertheless suffer worse outcomes.

I for one read the news to learn about the news -- not to read gratuitous and frankly silly references to God.