So, our friend is out of jail and has been assigned a court date. Needless to say, everyone involved is of varying degrees of pissed off.

Megan, Radley, Julian, and Jason all have good takes on what went down — I suggest checking out their posts for some insight–and a little laughter too.

Photographs, video and eyewitnesses aplenty, this should be a slam dunk against the government — but that does not mean that this is all ok. An arrest is still an arrest and our friend faces consequences for doing absolutely nothing wrong. She was polite, cooperative and stone-cold sober. Her crime, in addition to “bopping” (as overheard spoken by one of the arresting officers), was apparently inquiring as to what exactly she was doing wrong. For that, she was thrown up against a pillar in front of about 20 friends and summarily arrested — for quietly celebrating TJ’s birthday.

It should be noted that if she was “MMM-bopping,” the officers may have had a stronger case. But that is neither here nor there.

N.B.:

After calming down a bit, I realized that the original version of this post may have, albeit unintentionally, painted the entire police force with a single stroke. The simple fact of the matter is that this was a wrongful arrest by a single police officer or group of officers. This should not even reflect the entire Park Police or even all those on duty last evening/this morning.

That said, I have no love for that particular officer and his over-the-top actions.

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Filed under: Behind Every Law..., Freedom on Film, Profiles in Governance, Daily Rant

I don’t have time to get into it too deeply right now, but a very good friend of F&S (whom shall remain nameless for the moment) was arrested at the Jefferson Memorial tonight for dancing in celebration of his birthday.

We have bloggers working on this (and real journos too!) that you can find here and, as more information becomes available, here and here.

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Filed under: Behind Every Law..., Afternoon Dance Party

I imagine this will be the only time on this blog — and certainly by this author — that a positive word will be said of FDR and his policies. But, as I sit at my office (and might I add I’m pretty sure I’m still drunk from last night) I must give credit where it’s due: the left’s favorite poster-child (in the Jerry’s Kids sense) pushed for the end of prohibition.

After 13 dry years, legal beer had returned to the United States. It may seem silly to commemorate that day’s 75th anniversary. After all, it’s only beer, and we’ve got bigger things to think about. War. Global warming. Soaring gas prices. Crashing home prices.

Silly? For shame. There is nothing wrong with celebrating beer for beer’s sake.

So, if you’re one of those people who need a reason to drink — if you’re not into that whole NCAA thing — go out and celebrate the 75th anniversary of legal beer tonight.

You can even raise a glass to FDR — just this once.

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Filed under: Behind Every Law..., Consumerism Rulez, Profiles in Governance

Re: This post:

It turns out, the D.C. police realized going door to door in the ‘hood looking for guns and drugs probably isn’t the best idea:

D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier says she’s changing a plan for searches of private homes for illegal guns.

The chief now says searches would be done by appointment unless there is an urgent need. Police and city lawyers are still trying to work out what can and can’t be done during these searches.

I’m sure the police are manning the phones expecting a flood of calls from residents who want their neighbors to see the police come and search their homes.

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Filed under: Behind Every Law..., Profiles in Governance

And I thought laws outlawing suicide were stupid:

The mayor of a Brazilian town is trying to bring in a law making it illegal for residents to die.

Mayor Roberto Pereira da Silva, of Biritiba-Mirim, came up with the idea because the town’s only cemetery is full.

He wants to bring in a law that would see relatives of people who die before their time face fines or even jail.

The law would make it an offence for the town’s 28,000 citizens to not look after their health properly.

Mayor Pereira da Silva said there was no way of expending the cemetery or building a new one, reports Agora Sao Paulo.

He said: “Eighty nine per cent of the town is rivers, the rest is protected because it is tropical jungle.”

The state government had promised to help build a new vertical cemetery - but nothing had been done.

Gym memberships have reportedly shot up since the mayor announced his plans, and more people are visiting doctors.

Nanny state health issues + environmental regulation = laws against death.

I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.

Via Daily Dish.

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Filed under: Behind Every Law..., Freedom Meets Darwin, Profiles in Governance

In Martin County, Florida, if you have Africanized Honeybees (a.k.a. “Killer Bees“) on your property, the county can come onto your land to dispatch them:

Commissioners in Martin County have unanimously passed an ordinance allowing county employees to go onto private property without permission to kill Africanized bees and treat areas where mosquitoes are breeding.

I know that “killer bees” do, indeed, kill people. However, I don’t think that even dozens — let alone hundreds or thousands — of Americans die per annum from attacks from killer be…

Wait! What was that last part? Mosquitoes? In Florida? It isn’t as if the whole state is a swamp or anything…

Property rights, schmoperty rights. They gots to kill them bugs.

You can fully expect an up-tick of arrests and citations stemming from this decision.

Via Drudge.

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Filed under: Behind Every Law..., Profiles in Governance

I write for F&S because I need an outlet for my more outlandish and less-serious thoughts — and I was terribly flattered that Aynnie invited me to write here. I have my own blog to which I affix my given name to keep my name in the public sphere — even if no one regularly reads it — and to keep my writing sharp (-ish). I don’t fear legal retribution for anything I write here not because I am anonymous, but because I think most rational people can see the absurdity of the government and individual actions I write about. I’m sure I piss some people off, but such is the beauty of the medium.

That said, perhaps I should be more concerned:

It’s a mystery that has gripped Whitewater city government since July: Who is John Adams, the anonymous blogger at www.freewhitewater.com?

…

He is critical of the School District and other local officials, calling a former municipal judge who was convicted of lewd behavior last year a “vulgar laughingstock.”

But much of his criticism is reserved for Whitewater’s police chief, James Coan, whom the closeted critic accuses of misusing his position.

Case in point: Coan’s use of city employees to try to unmask Adams — exposed in a series of posts on his blog earlier this month — that is part Keystone Cops and part challenge to Adams’ constitutional rights.

According to Whitewater Police Department e-mails obtained by Adams under the state’s open records law, Coan involved at least two detectives, the city’s director of public works, its information technology officer and the city clerk — all working on city time and using taxpayer-funded resources — to find the identity of a man described as a “suspect” but who had not committed a crime.

Granted, working inside the Beltway provides me certain protections because it is a major city — albeit a rather shitty one — that thrives on criticism of government and its policies. So many of us here would be entirely out of work if the government stuck to its functions and only did what it was meant to do.

Nevertheless, it troubles me that what I do, namely what you’re reading, is being targeted by law enforcement in our country without even the common decency to pass a law outlawing anony-blogging. But really?:

In Whitewater, the effort to discover Adams’ identity included examining his e-mails and Web site registration, running a license plate check on a man suspected of being Adams (he wasn’t), and suggesting city officials conduct surveillance at the dedication of a restored historic landmark on the chance he might be there.

“I think it is someone we want to keep an eye on…,” Whitewater Police Detective Tina Winger wrote in an e-mail to Coan. “Seems like an anti-government radical to me.”

The investigation culminated in a Jan. 4 visit from Coan and Whitewater Police Lt. Tim Gray to the home of Scott, whom Coan said afterward he was “99.9 percent convinced” was the blogger.

In fact, said Adams, who revealed his identity to the Wisconsin State Journal on condition of anonymity, the chief was “100 percent wrong.”

Whitewater City Manager Kevin Brunner said he sees nothing wrong with city employees’ attempts to expose Adams. He said the efforts took very little time and were aimed at seeking a dialogue with the blogger to address his complaints about the city.

“I think it was a very legitimate use of their time,” Brunner said. “I think the impetus was to try to engage in some civil discourse with that person.

Regular readers know that I’m not one to be generous with the benefit of the doubt for public — and especially police — officials. But I don’t know what backwatered moron could possibly buy the “efforts took very little time and were aimed at seeking a dialogue with the blogger to address his complaints about the city” bullshit.

Honestly, when is the last time you called a man with a gun something to the effect of “bumbling fucktard” and expected his reaction — with his similarly armed friends with surveillance capabilities — to include “seeking a dialogue”?

More power to “John Adams” and his libertarian crusade in Wisconsin.

Much love to Fark.

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Filed under: Behind Every Law..., Profiles in Governance, Daily Rant

In what can best be described as “desperation” in the face of the D.C. v. Heller case, the D.C. Police plan to go door-to-door, asking for permission to search residents’ homes for illegal guns and drugs.

D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) and Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier announced several new initiatives today aimed at combating gun crimes, including one encouraging residents to submit to voluntary searches of their homes in exchange for amnesty if the residents have illegal guns or drugs.

Right. “Submit” to “voluntary” searches for things that shouldn’t be illegal in the first place.

There won’t be any pressure, I’m sure. The police will never get suspicious if a nervous resident turns down them down. The residents will just assume that the cops will just forget — they won’t record who assents and who doesn’t. And we all know, if there is one group of people who trust the police to protect them, it’s the people in the poor, urban neighborhoods.

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Filed under: Behind Every Law..., Daily Rant

This is why minors shouldn’t vote:

This community on the edge of Los Angeles has become a cuss-free zone.
…

Not that police will slap cuffs on you and haul your sorry, er, butt off to jail in light of the proclamation passed Wednesday by the City Council. But you could be shamed into better behavior by the unsettling glares of residents who take their reputation for civility seriously.

“That’s one of the purposes of this,” Mayor Michael Cacciotti said of his city’s proclamation designating the first week of March as No Cussing Week. “It provides us a reminder to be more civil, to elevate the level of discourse.”

The proclamation will be in effect until Friday, and then the first week of every March hereafter.

…

But what’s different about the latest push to stop saying in public the words that Jane Fonda and Diane Keaton recently discovered we still can’t say on television is that it was proposed by a 14-year-old boy.

“My mom and dad always taught me good morals, good values, and not cussing was one of them,” said McKay Hatch, the founder of South Pasadena High School’s No Cussing Club, during a recent break between study hall and tennis practice.

1. Who names their kid “McKay”? Did they want him to get beat up? (I would know this. I’m a boy named “Sue,” for Christ’s sake.)

2. The South Pasadena City Council has proven its own uselessness by passing a law of no consequence, that flies in the face of the 1st Amendment, inspired by a 14-year-old who is put-off by swearing. Fuck them and him.

3. The word is “curse,” goddamn it. “Cuss” is a derivative, colloquial form of the word “curse” that is more offensive to my ears than “fuck,” “shit,” or “douchebag” could ever be.

4. You can tell someone, “proceed to fellate yourself whilst being sodomized with a jagged-edge of a broken coke bottle by your mother who wears comfortable shoes” without using any foul language. If you’re going to be so asinine to attempt to “elevate the level of discourse,” by restricting speech, at least have the common sense to ban ideas, not just words.

More on the absurdity of the anti-swearing assholes here:

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Filed under: Behind Every Law..., Profiles in Governance, Daily Rant

Whatever one thought of the Teri Schiavo debacle, there were two facets of that case that American patients should take comfort in:

1. That there was a real and legitimate debate about what Mrs. Schiavo’s real wishes would have been, with different sets of loved ones presenting the courts with differing evidence that supported differing conclusions and
2. that, if it could be determined definitively what those intentions were, it would have made a difference.

Our neighbors to the north are currently engaged in a controversy of their own that papers are calling “the Canadian Schiavo case,” but there are some stark differences that illustrate some of the unforseen dangers of the single-payer health care system. There, despite the fact that the family of Salvation Army Grace General Hospital patient Samuel Golubchuk are united in wanting to keep their father alive, and despite the fact that his being a strictly observant Orthodox Jew would seem to leave little question as to what his thoughts on the matter would be:

Golubchuk’s doctors informed his children that their 84-year-old father is “in the process of dying” and that they intended to hasten the process by removing his ventilation, and if that proved insufficient to kill him quickly, to also remove his feeding tube. In the event that the patient showed discomfort during these procedures, the chief of the hospital’s ICU unit stated in his affidavit that he would administer morphine.

The difference, of course, is that in Canada, the state is both payor and provider of all health care, and even if Golubchuk’s family had the means to pay for their father’s continued hospitalization, it would be illegal for them to do so. When opponents of socialized medicine complain of “rationing,” this is specifically what they mean — he who pays the piper calls the tune, and once all health care costs become public, so too, do all health care decisions:

the director of the ICU informed Golubchuk’s children that neither their father’s wishes nor their own are relevant, and he would do whatever he decided was appropriate. Bill Olson, counsel for the ICU director, told the Canadian Broadcasting Company that physicians have the sole right to make decisions about treatment — even if it goes against a patient’s religious beliefs — and that “there is no right to a continuation of treatment.”

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Filed under: Behind Every Law..., Consumerism Rulez, Profiles in Governance