Two whole years of harshness, volatility, and gripping content that is simply not to be found elsewhere. And that's for good reason. When we started the Latewire, a multi-author, pan-topic, uncensored stream-of-unconsciousness antiblog seemed like a pretty bad idea. We did it anyway. Two years later, it seems unconscionable, but you're still reading it -- in fact, more of you get lit up by the Wire every month, your strange legion now well in the thousands.
"The truth is mixing with the lies to create some potent new reality." - Josh Kornbluth in "Haiku Tunnel"
Latewire has been on top of some pretty vital issues, earlystyles. This is nearly incredible for a totally unorganized collective of deeply bizzarre posthumans. Organizing against bank bailouts? LW was there first. Emo capri pants on males? LW enthographers spotted them in the field. Exclusive interview with Ken Lunde? Only on Latewire. Realization that not all reggae music sucks? That epiphany brought to you right here.
Different readers use Latewire in different ways. To some, it's the place to go for Austrian-style economics analysis infused with black humor. To others, it's a reliable source of morose comedown prose and doomed poetry. Still others look to LW for an image reservoir and original* graphic art that bests the most popular imageboards on the intarweebs. Some come to Latewire for radical and reasoned thinking on eating and growing food. And some look forward to articles by particular writers : the terrifying clarity of Dr Roe; certifiable voice-of-the-damned 1m1w; the graphic arts genius of DeadcowX; the stark insight of Bill. See, LW is like a jar of mayonnaise. What you do with it is your business. We don't want to know**. Just keep coming back and we'll keep serving it up, even with the end of the world coming up and all.
Latewire. Fortunately for everyone, there's nothing else like it.
"Mens insana in corpore sano"
-Hank 04-01-2010
*Provided that your definition of "original" includes stealing images from other sites, messing with them, and then writing "LATEWIRE" across them
**Actually, we kind of do want to know. In fact, send me an email to Hank [at] Latewire (diddot) com about why you Latewire in 500 words or less. Please include aphorisms. The author of the one we like best wins a free Latewire Latewear T-shirt of their choice (see link at sidebar). (36,540)
So, how do you feel about trading goods and services in-kind? How do you feel about hand puppets? How do you feel about rap?
This video will help you answer all these questions. My presentation from Ignite Phoenix 5 : "Use What You Got To Get What You Want."
Rap text :
When I say "Sales Tax" you say "Auuugh!" Sales tax! [Auuugh!] Sales tax! [Auuugh!] When I say "Community," you say "Exchange!" Community! [Exchange!] Community! [Exchange!] Now clap with me... one, two, three, hit it!
Sales tax as a tax is regressive That means to the poor, it's oppressive Money has problems, that's what we say For local commerce, there's a better way! What is it that we propose to do? Let's trade things of real value!
Don't you know we're trading Hard hats for driveway surfaces Web pages for legal services Copywriting for photography Food for books, aiyyo, it's better than money!
Aiyyo I got some carrots! Yo I got some plums! Let's trade together So we both can have some!
Awwww yeah, that's the way that we do Trading goods and services in kind is not for fools! Hahahar! We got it made -- While I got a chance now, let me make this trade!
We're trading in kind, we hope you don't mind now Skills plus goods -- more value than money, hey all right! We get to better know each other When we trade in-kind with one another
Informal or organized, this trade is fly! Don't forget to file your 1099! Community exchange, it rocks the spot Use what you got to get what you want!
This is one I uploaded in 2004. I'd forgotten how excellent it was.
BOOK FORUM Tuesday, December 14, 2004 12:00 PM (Luncheon to Follow) Featuring Judge Andrew P. Napolitano, Senior Judicial Analyst, Fox News, and Author, Constitutional Chaos: What Happens When the Government Breaks Its Own Laws (Nelson Books, 2004); Gene Healy, Senior Editor, Cato Institute, and Editor, Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of Almost Everything (Cato Institute, 2004); and moderated by Tim Lynch, Director, Cato's Project on Criminal Justice The Cato Institute
In Constitutional Chaos, Judge Andrew Napolitano maintains that most Americans take their constitutional rights and liberties for granted and are largely ignorant of how the government breaks its own laws and gets away with it.
In Go Directly to Jail, Cato Institute senior editor Gene Healy shows how the government has been criminalizing more and more citizen conduct. With more than 4,000 federal offenses on the statute books and thousands more buried in the Code of Federal Regulations, Healy points out that there are good reasons to be alarmed by the government’s perfectly “legal” restrictions, investigations, and prosecutions.
[Bonus points for spotting a Latewirer in th' above photo by Joe Johnston aka @RealJoe !]
I'm so used to slouching in th' back of rooms, dissecting and criticizing what folks have to say, and scowling at presenters from behind my composition book that I'm generally unprepared to hear a talk from someone who is inarguably, scintillatingly awesome. This Wednesday, I was sulking around Gangplank as usual, prepping for another in a series of usually-pretty-darn-good lunch presentations on business, tech, and marketing. Somewhat bafflingly for me, on deck for that day's talk was Joe Johnston (real name!), an oldish guy that I'd heard of before, as the restauranteur behind Joe's Real BBQ, a place famous for giving away free BBQ sandwiches once every year. This guy, I knew, was also behind th' latest in-crowd hangout, Liberty Market.
Now, see, I respect successful businesspersons. I also have a basic, reactionary, but often-justified snobby attitude about "latest in-crowd hangouts" and other signifiers of hipster culture. Never having been to Liberty Market, and having been to Joe's real BBQ only once (and I have to admit, I still prefer Honey Bear's), I didn't have a clear idea about what sort of insight this old sandwich-slinger would have to offer a room full of bad-attitude tech goons and myself. His topic was "Social Media and the Third Place," which sounded pretty bog standard except I wasn't sure what any of this had to do with baseball. And, gee, social media advice is like bad debt : a lot of people have it and would love to pass it on to you.
As it turns out, Joe Johnston is a real interesting cat who puts a lot of thought into what he does. He's got a wide range of knowledge, a compelling story and some pretty darned neat ideas about how to run a real live brick-n-mortar business. He showed up wearing a breezy Hawaiian-style shirt and a straw porkpie hat (indoors, which is bad manners if you ask me, but hey, he's the millionaire). Here's the brief :
Joe Johnston is an old-school Arizonan who grew up on a family farm in Gilbert in the 1960s. He studied electrical engineering at Stanford and practiced that lucrative trade for several years, until a backlog of pleasant memories from his college coffeehouse haunting days and Ray Oldenburg's now-classic book "The Great Good Place" drove him to become heavily interested in and soon professionally involved with what Oldenburg called "Third Places."
According to Oldenburg, the "First Place" is the insular place where we live with our families, sleep, and play 'Scrabble.'. The "Second Place" is the workplace, a much more structured environment where we might spend even more time than we spend at home. The "Third Place" is a highly unstructured environment away from home where conversation is the main activity, ideas are exchanged, and culture is created. Classic examples of "Third Places" are pubs in Britain, cafes in France, barbershops, and coffeehouses in the 1960s USA. Phoenix has often been derided as being bereft of an indigenous urban culture; Joe figured it was high time he did something about it.
His first attempt at creating a "third place" began in 1989 when he and his pal Tim Peelen realized that there weren't any coffeehouses in metro Phoenix and decided to give it a shot. They started by developing what they believed to be a superior product -- good-quality "gourmet coffee," buying various raw bean varieties and test-roasting them in Joe's popcorn popper. When a few winners were ready, they opened up a joint on Mill Avenue in Tempe, right near ASU, and called it Coffee Plantation. To hear Joe tell it, it was a pretty good "third place" and the first coffeehouse of its kind in Tempe.
[ That last bit is funny to me, because by the time I got to ASU (after Joe and Tim had sold it to some business swine), Coffee Plantation was boring, stifling, had mediocre product, and was mobbed with lame folks at all times. Goes to show maybe how one person's persona can anchor a whole enterprise, and the whole thing can spin off into the choppy seas of wackitude when that person leaves).
Johnston and Peelen offloaded Coffee Plantation because it got too big. This is interesting and gives a little insight into what these guys are about. Joe said that after opening up a few more locations and a separate roasting facility, totaling over 150 people on the payroll, it stopped being fun and conceptual and started to turn into a real operations drag. Idea-guys don't like dealing with stacks of HR paperwork and worker's comp claims filed by reefer-sick baristas who burned themselves with cappuccino foam while chatting up fellow Phish fans on the other side of th' counter.
So, Johnston took a year-long sabbatical to travel around th' country eating delicious food. [Tough life huh] Like all non-alien humans, he has a special love for barbecue. He got an idea to start a BBQ of his own, and spent a lot of time in Texas sampling the local variations and looking for the best site designs and delivery / service systems. In 1998, he opened Joe's Real BBQ, which as I mentioned is pretty good. I give him definite props for developing his own distinctive sauce, which is worth a try.
That highly informal restaurant was a raging, hoot-n-hollering success, so Johnston figured he was on a roll and opened up Joe's Farm Grill, which uses fresh produce from his urban farm (more on this later), and then Liberty Market, the most abstract sort-of-restaurant of them all. With Liberty Market, Johnston unplugged completely from the heavy operations chores to focus on design, menu, and conceptual guidance. He seemed pretty stoked about it.
[fun fact : I realized after I'd spent a long time typing the previous section that this story had probably been typed out before, considering that this guy is like super famous. Sure nuff, I could have just cut-and-pasted from the 'About' pages on the restaurant Web sites]
After hipping the crowd to this background, Johnston ripped into a discussion of Oldenburg's "8 characteristics" that define the Third Place and what they mean for business. He also passed around nice handout sheets, which is something that I've never seen before at Gangplank but that was much appreciated :
[Note : despite all th' talk about class, I'm no Marxist and I doubt that Joe is either]
1) Neutral ground : the third place has no formal leader, is not 'hosted,' has no time constraints [e.g., no waitresses rushing you out of your table after the dinner], and is designed for maximum comfort level -The key things here are the lack of hierarchical structure and lack of serious time constraints. Re : the latter : most places have to close sometime, but if you're only open 4 hours a day, that's not going to give people enough flexibility to get really comfortable)
2) Leveler : the experience is designed so that people from all walks of life feel comfortable; all socioeconomic classes are eligible to participate. This illustrates the idea of commonality and requires that the barriers to entry be reduced to the lowest levels possible. - Low barrier to entry is vital here. At Liberty Market, Johnston sets the barrier at $1.66 -- the price of an espresso. He says he'll even work out deals with homeless people who have no cash (what about Pee-Wee Herman?). Of near-equal importance is that what staff there are don;t behave in a snobby way that turns people from certain classes off. This leveling concept is necessary for the exchange of ideas between classes that sparks creativity and interesting convos.
3) Conversation : This is necessarily the main activity at the "third place." The convo must be "lively, with lots of discussion, and lots of buzz," says Johnston. The idea here is to foster communication. - Part of this is making sure that it's easy to converse in the space. This means tables put together to encourage groups to mix, and music that's not too loud. This last point is seriously overlooked by many establishments aspiring to be 'third places,' 78% of whom deem it essential to blast "Stir it Up" at 97 decibels while I'm trying to hear someone speak.
4) Accessibility -- this is related to #1 -- the place has to be accessible during a broad swath of time throughout the day. People need to be able to drift in and out according to their own natural schedules. - In Johnston's example, Liberty Market opens at 7am and closes after a late dinner. Again, it's crucial that people not feel rushed.
5) Regulars : Any establishment wishing to be a "third place" needs to take care that its regulars are looked-after and that the stage is set for their enjoyment. The regulars foster conversation, draw in new participants, and provide the cultural spark of the place. - The regulars set the cultural tone, so it's vital to recognize them and not tick them off.
6) Low-profile : The physical design of the space should be kind of plain (though inviting), utilitarian, and not over-wrought. it should just be a comfortable structure that allows focus to remain on the people and conversations. -Gangplank is a good example of this. Th' place looks like a classroom and is inside an industrial space, but that 'blank' atmosphere is ideal for free-ranging thought development and unconstrained talk.
7) Playful mood : The overall vibe must not be serious, boring, annoying or pretentious. -Instead, it should be upbeat, joking, and full of enjoyment. Overbearing atmosphere stifles conversation and culture, and will keep 'fresh' people far away.
8) Homelike : this means that the place should have an element of physical and psychological comfort that puts one at ease. -In practice, this means having couches and other homey touches around, reading material, etc
A lot of places recognize the value of being a "third place" and aspire to be one, but they're not. Restaurants want to bundle you out of there as soon as your check's paid; Starbucks charges for Web access, Burger King feels like an Orwellian nightmare, etc. Neglect of any of the principles above can prevent the third-place culture incubator from forming.
How 'social media' relates to the "Third Place" concept : -Twitter is kind of like a 'third place' online. Very low barrier to entry, all-inclusive, strictly conversation-based, etc. In practice, it's possible and advisable to 'leverage' this virtual 'third place' to promote the physical 'third place.' The place owner / organizer / idea person can use social media not only to generate word-of-mouth (and keep track of what the word is), but to directly keep in touch with customers. The latter is especially important when considering the vital nurturing of regulars that all 'third places' need to succeed. You can pass along special offers to them, get their invaluable feedback on potential changes and plans (from menu to construction ideas) and keep track of / thank them for their visits and reports. Social media helps you let the regulars know that they're relaly important. - In social media interactions as well as those in 'meatspace,' it's advisable to hew close to the old rules of conversation as possible : 1) Remain silent your share of the time -- don't hog th' airspace 2) Be attentive while others are talking 3) Say what you think, but be careful 4) Avoid topics not of general interest. You might really really want to talk about how your toothbrush tasted funny this morning, but others likely give no hoot. 5) Say little or nothing about yourself, talk about others and their adventures and achievements ( note : some have suggested an 'eight-to-one' rule : for every comment you make about yourself, spend eight talk segments on others ) 6) Speak in as low a voice as will allow others to hear.
In addition to these ideas and his business history, Johnston spoke briefly about his 'mid-century Modern' housing development, Agritopia, which also contains the sustainable, no-pesticide-or-herbicide farm he uses to supply his restaurants. This idea of a self-supporting urban agriculture community is radical and, while I wouldn't live there personally as a matter of lot size and loathing of HOAs, this idea probably represents a good model for future community development.
Johnston's focus on design, "third place" ideas, and self-reliance are seriously invigorating. Judging from the audience reaction, he inspired quite a few other folks to take a big-picture view with an eye for vital details and invest some energy into doing something right -- or as he says, "from the heart." (47,620)
Bruce Ackerman, David Cole, and the amusingly-named Mark Tushnet are highfalutin constitutional law scholars whose free time is spent counting balogna slices dusted with gold and knitting gun socks.
What follows are the key points from Ackerman's "The Emergency Constitution," Cole's rebuttal "The Priority of Morality," and Tushnet's "Emergencies and the Idea of Constitutionalism." These articles deal expressly with the concept of government power during times of emergency. Questions addressed in here are like "How much power can the government have during times of crisis? How long should those powers last? And how do we locate those powers in the law?"
I'm one of those people that can be talked into nearly anything -- you know, someone will be like "yeah see this and this and this" and I'll be like "oh yeah that makes sense." I was acutely aware of this as I typed up these notes; every other line I was like "hey that's a good point..." even if the paragraph is totally objectionable on final consideration.
The one-word synopsis of these is "BEWARE"
So here it is :
Ackerman main points :
-Terror attacks will occur in the future
-Therefore, new constitutional measures are required to check against politicians, who are wont to introduce repressive measures after attacks in order to promote security
-Civil libertarian arguments are tempting, but not pragmatic -- in the event of crisis, politicians will be applauded for brushing libertarian objections aside as 'quixotic' and instituting repressive measures. Therefore, the absolutist civil libertarian view is not workable
-Therefore, those who wish to defend liberty must work to codify short-term emergency measures that can't be extended in permanence - this is the way to prevent the 'panic-driven' cycle of increasing repression
-Existing Western legal frameworks of war and crime are inadequate for dealing with terrorism
-Re : war : This is because when the very existence of the State is threatened, the executive must be granted temporary and extraordinary powers; however, 9/11-type attacks don't literally pose this threat. The true threat is seated in the public panic caused by such attacks. Judges cannot be relied upon to make the correct snap decisions in the face of panics; they are no less immune to panic than the rest of us. The emergency constitution
-Contsructs of war law do not fit the so-called 'war on terror' -- war is in fact between sovereigns. Conceiving of the terror conflict as war leads to abuses such as the designation of suspected terrorists as 'enemy combatants.' Also, war ends, whereas the terror threat is without end; this leads to a situation where all people are potentially subject to detention without end. If the executive is also allowed to punish, this results in a de facto alternative criminal justice system, with all the questions that entails.
-Re: Crime : Al-Qaeda is a dangerous conspiracy just like the Mafia. Likewise, the accused participants in the very real Communist conspiracy, who were supported by a hostile sovereign and could well have precipitated a classic war, were never stripped of fundamental Constitutional due process.
-However, terrorists have political objectives, whereas criminal conspirators generally do not
-Also, the scale of the individual terrorist attack threat differs from the Commie threat in a couple of important ways : 1) The terror attack might wipe out a city, but not the entire civilization a la Soviet rocket attack; b) we have seen the devastation from a terror attack, whereas we never did see nuclear holocaust on our shores. The state will survive a terror attack, and must act to assure the public that it remains, is not demoralized, and is moving effectively to contain the threat
-Therefore, neither of these legal rubrics is adequate for dealing with the terror threat; a new emergency powers framework must be put in place so that the government can effectively reassure the populace after a tragedy
-The classic debate deals with emergencies that threaten the very existence of the state, which the terror attack does not. However, the reaction of the government to an attack is likely to do permanent harm to civil liberties
-Present 'when public safety may require it' language relies on judicial imagination for interpretation and also dealing with consequences; this is unacceptably ambiguous 'law fog'
-so why not allow a real emergency powers law take care of this?
-Without formal emergency powers, how do we prevent korematsu from rearing its head again?
-Suggestions to make emergency a case for extralegal action does prevent dangerous legal precedent from being established, but also poses the danger of the lawless conditions persisting
-Subjecting the declared state of emergency to vote every two months, requiring a larger majority for ratification each time -- the 'supermajoritarian escalator' -- is the way to ensure that states of emergency, and the abuses they necessarily entail, do not persist beyond their necesssity
-There should be a provision in emergency constitution to ensure that executive and majority party share information with minority legislators in advance of a vote
-S.A. already has a supermajoritarian escalator in their const, albeit only 2-step
-It would be necessary to explicitly differentiate between different types of emergencies (natural disasters, war, civil unrest) and prescribe for each -- Canada does this
-Innocents caught up in emergency dragnets would be entitled to 'just compensation' that takes into account the true cost to the individual of imprisonment, and this amount must be paid by the acting administration out of its own budget -- this is a good check against willy-nilly excess and also provides some measure of justice to those wronged
-Emergency powers would also be constrained by 'decency' -- e.g. , no terrible racism, personal animus, etc
-So : supermajoritarianism, compensation, decency are characteristics that make this plan not only actionable, but more just than other proposals
Cole main points :
-Stated goal of DoJ (Ashcroft) is to use any and every available law to collar 'suspected terrorists,' just as JFK would arrest a mobster for 'spitting on the sidewalk.'
-Preventive detention has taken place along undeniably racial grounds, with those of Middle Eastern descent being targeted on that basis alone
-Historical preventive detention cases (Palmer raids, Japanese internment)show poor targeting and rights abuses
-'suspicionless preventive detention' lacks 'legitimate purpose;' and emergency constitution would expand, rather than limit, it
-Ackerman's article is deficient in scope -- powers must be precisely enumerated
-If, for example, detention of innocents is wrong, why make it explicitly legal? The compensation scheme is muddled -- why dispose of the need for suspicion before detention in the first place?
-The idea that the costs of mass preventive detention are mitigated by the 'reassurance' of the public in time of 'panic' is flawed -- who is being reassured? Surely not those who share characteristics with the detainees
-There is no substitute for an 'appropriate normative balance between liberty and security -- call it the priority of morality' -- is it truly ever justified to incarcerate innocent people without suspicion? If detention without basis is legal, how are the courts to determine who is 'wrogly' imprisoned ex post?
-Ackerman underestimates courts and overestimates legislatures
-"Preventive detention without suspicion and without judicial review is not justified in the name of making the public feel better"
-Ackerman's dim view of judicial response in crisis is shortsighted; though Lincoln, Korematsu, et al are negative examples, in the macro view, the judiciary has shown itself able to check executive overreaching
-Good constitutional legal doctrine does provide positive prevention of some things and a good yardstick for the vetting of new proposals
-Political safeguards (legislative) make poor substitutes for judicial ones; history shows that legislatures are more likely to be caught up in the enthusiasm of the executive and 'spur it on' than to strongly check it in times of panic; the behavior of Congress in the Patriot Act era is evidence o this
-"The tendency of the collective to avoid hard choices is at its zenith in times of crisis"
-Legislatures and executives will take a bigger constitutional 'hit' if another terror attack occurs on their watch than if they violate civil liberties, particularly if those violations are concentrated on 'others' like foreign nationals and those of Arab descent
-Congress has never enforced War Powers Resolution, intended to check unilateral wars of the executive
-Congress has never convened on the National Emergencies Act to consider and vote on states of emergency
-If courts are a weak check on executive excess, the legislature is weaker still
-Detainees are unlikely to have political influence or public sympathy -- or else they would not be detained in the first place. This is another reason that their fate should not be trusted to the politically-responsive legislative branch - "the writ of habeus corpus is guaranteed for a reason"
-Ackerman's failure to distinguish not only between types of emergency powers, but the real reason the Palmer raids and other historical detentions were odious (not because the detentions were extended, but because they were based on no objective suspicion but on aspects of the victims' identity) shows the shallowness of his vision
-Problems of trade-offs between liberty and security can't be solved or 'sidestepped' by supermajoritarian escalators; this goes far beyond preventive detention
-Supermajoritarian escalator is not only insufficient to deal with many threats to civil liberties (such as FBI meddling in civil rights groups in the 60s), but irrelevant, simply because many responses to the threat of terrorism are not susceptible to time limits
-For example, the material support law requires a 'long-term systemic solution' to determine what constitutes material support (coloring books vs bombs) and whether the decisions of the government are reviewable -- again, supermajoritarian escalator / states of emergency have zero relevance here
-The detention of enemy combatants in an indefinite war likewise cannot be answered by a supermajoritarian escalator
- in short, different emergency powers should have different shelf lives
-on the other hand, the assumption that a state of emergency might not persist even though a 21% minority oppose it after a length of time fails to account for the fact that denial may be as likely a response as panic
-Al Qaeda as persisted for years despite the best efforts of the whole government; to suppose that no state of emergency could last more than a few months is unrealistic
-Palmer and Ashcroft roundups show that preventive detention can be effected without the declaration of a state of emergency; therefore there would be no incentive to declare one (and set its supermajoritarian works in motion) fo this purpose
-Because the 'compensation' angle rests not on the whether or not there was in fac treasonable suspicion, but rather ultimate innocence, a detainee who was subject to preventive incarceration but was later convicted of hiring an illegal worker would be denied compensation; likewise, someone for whom probable cause could have been shown but was ultimately innocent would be considered as 'lawfully' detained, and again denied compensation
-Ackerman's 'morality' specs (no personal animus or identity discrimination) are largely unenforceable
-Compensation unlikely to provide the correct amount of deterrence and would never truly compensate the innocent for loss of liberty
-The final normative reality is that a palliating 'reassurance' of the population can not be avalid reason for detaining individuals without cause and without judicial review
-
Tushnet main points :
-There are three basic approaches to emergency powers as relates to costitutionalism :
1) The constitution's general principles should apply to emergency situations, with the 'rational application' of concepts such as race-based classification differing between constitutionality in peacetime and constitutionality in wartime
2) The constitution is 'bifurcated' into peacetime and wartime standards, with different applications unique to each
3) That war presents a reasonable opportunity for the wholesale suspension of legality, to avoid legal justifications and precedents that may be dangerous in peacetime
-^^The first view holds that constitutional law need not be displaced, only properly interpreted, to deal with crisis
-What is violation of free speech in peacetime may not be so in wartime
- -'Judges no less than public officials are subject to the pressures of events'
-The right categorical judgment may be swept aside in the heat of crisis
-Civil liberty violations may be difficult to consider as such in wartime, either because judges view the war interpretation as sufficient justification for the infraction (as they balance constitutional rights) or because they formulate categorical rules that permit the act in question as part of a chain of triggering mechanisms.
-These interpretations, if later shown to be based on incorrect assessment of emergency, may be negated as precedent in hindsight or, more dangerously, be seized upon all the more strongly when some larger crisis is perceived
-The disturbing part here is the treatment of the consequences of the decision as lawful
-This is especially of concern in situations like that of the terror threat, wherein the threat may be of indefinite duration
-Suspending legality for the duration of a finite war like WWII is one thing, doing so in a permanent condition is 'the end of the rule of law itself'
-The nature of the struggle against terror as a condition rather than a traditional war points to the idea that a more or less permanent, not emergency, balance between liberty and security should be struck
-^^The suspension-of-legality view (expounded by carl Schmitt) holds that such suspension is inevitable because the law cannot anticipate all future crises that will prompt government to spontaneously expand its powers, and to attempt to codify these in law undermines in fact the rule of law itself
-If we accept that executives will exercise extra-constitutional powers in the face of unanticipated varieties of emergency, we can deal with the consequences of extralegal actions ex post
-Forcing executives to publicly acknowledge extralegal action in real time is impractical -- such acknowledgement may invalidate whatever was being attempted
-"One cannot use law to determine when legality may be suspended"
-Governments operating under emergency powers = 'regimes of exception' ; these will arise; the question is 'how to locate them with respect to the constitution'
-The rule of law cannot be considered, in reality, to limit response to unknown emergencies; the public's recourse lies in the future rather than in short-term restrictions
-In contrast, legalized emergency powers provide executives with a 'fig leaf of legality to cover the expansive use of sheer power'
-As Jackson said in his Korematsu dissent, we can't confine military expedients within the constitution, and neither should the constitution be distorted to accommodate al military expedients
-It is better to have extraordinary power exercised in a way that is clear to all is extraordinary -- that is, in an extralegal understanding -- than to attempt to twist the law so as to allow for the exercise of extraordinary power
-The validity of extra-constutional acts is ratified or condemned not most crucially by the courts, but by the public acting 'out of doors'
-the cries of civil liberties alarmists are important for this function of check
-Crisis situations where the law requires X but individuals' morality requires Y are likely to bring about extralegal action
-Most importantly, admitted extralegal acts do not pose a threat to the ideal of the rule of law
-Bottom line : neither ordinary constitutional law nor 'emergency' constitutional law is well-suited to the address of true emergency (39,190)
So I'm quitting nicotine for the 11th time, and got to thinking damn this stuff is awesome. If it weren't for the cost and health effects I'd still be smokin'. So why does everyone have to be hating?
Health Nazis
The first national anti smoking crusade was from everyone's favorite overused hyperbole of evil Uncle Adolph (Link). I can't separate modern activists from their prestigious pedigree as their goals and ideology are extremely similar. The idea is simple, it's not only in your interest to quit smoking it's in the nations interest. The state or your local do-gooder is better able to make decisions about your consumption and ultimately your body is the property of the state.
The Nazi State not only discouraged smoking but also enacted the broadest anti-smoking legislation on the planet including banning smoking in workplaces, banning the military from smoking in uniform, and banning smoking of everyone under 18 in public. Like what the Autoban did for personal transport this legislation would become blueprint to the world flowering with the idea of community health.
Not to be left out, other dictators including Mussolini and Franco jumped on the band wagon. And like most things any Italian government has attempted; the program backfired terribly. Leaving Italy slightly ahead of European averages.
Butt Out Science
Cigarettes smoking cause the smoker cancer. Second hand smoke causes cancer. The first is undeniable true the second has never been proven. What? How can the American Lung Association claim it does? Both the EPA and the UN fudged statistics within their own studies to arrive at conclusions that where desirable for the issing agency. (Link) (Link) This persecution is clearly of trying to shore up belief by any means necessary to promote an agency agenda; It's not enough that smoking kills smokers, but it must kill everyone around them as well in order to justify funding a public health effort.
The sad thing is, no one but smokers really care. Other environmental pollutants like perfume, Corn Nuts, and children go unregulated and largely unstudied but as smokers are an undesirable minority and must be held to the closest scrutiny.
The Smell of Ass
People stink. Places where people congregate for lengths of time smell worse. Clubs and Pubs in the UK found that out the hard way when a law was passed outlawing cigarettes. Overnight the awful smells of cigarette smoke dissipated and patrons where bombarded with the smell of people and pub i.e. ass, beer, and puke. (Link) Some pubs even purchased fake cigarette smell to spray to try and hide the stench and bring back the old happy feeling of quite desperation. (Link)
I can't say I enjoy the smell of cigarettes nor do I enjoy the smell of people, but something strikes me that smoking bans in drinking establishments are targeted against the working class. The busybodies who enact such legislation probably have never broken a sweat, much less sat down with a bunch of sweaty men looking to tie one off after a day's work of heavy manual labor. In order to equalize things, I purpose banning do-gooders from coffee shops and spraying liquefied smug around to keep the
'atmosphere'.
The Man
The Man hates smoking (see Health Nazis) but loves taxes on tobacco. When talking about tobacco anti-smoking crusaders love to call tobacco merchants 'Merchants of Death,' what would the call the single largest recipient of Death Money? The Man receives more revenue than any single tobacco company, more than the tobacco wings of R.J. Reynolds or Philip Morris. Does this make The Man the King of Death? For this reason alone, I am convinced the man won't kill tobacco outright, or at least until he has taxed most sales into the black market.
Though still legal, The Man in his wisdom, has sought fit to fuel a black market through insane levels of taxation. Creating smuggling, adding another level to the underground economy, and making tobacco trucks a more common target than armored trucks in places like New York. (Link) Spurring criminal enterprise and raking in the dough, the Man should be ashamed. But no, he gets more brazen every year.
My Say
It is my opinion that smokers are marginally above pedophiles in the rungs of modern social acceptance among non-smokers. It's for this reason the majority has time and time again put us down. In a shocking turn around the general public has grown health conscious has quit smoking in droves, only to compensate by stuffing themselves to levels of obesity unheard of in human history.
When Obama was outed as a smoker, there was a cacophony of screams of health Nazism until the Obama campaign issued a statement that he was trying to quit. The guy is going to be president, let him enjoy his smokes. Not only that, he should be allowed to enjoy his smokes in public without wailing and gnashing of teeth.
After there are far worse things in this world than tobacco, shouldn't you anti-smoking types be working on getting them fixed first? (48,818)
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It is my opinion that smokers are marginally above pedophiles in the rungs of modern social acceptance among non-smokers. It's for this reason the majority has time and time again put us down. In a shocking turn around the general public has grown health conscious has quit smoking in droves, only to compensate by stuffing themselves to levels of obesity unheard of in human history.
