Category: Government

Buy the team instead of running for office.

I’ve written about this case before, but a federal appeals court held that security searches before Tampa Bay Buccaneers games are not unconstitutional because the fan who challenged them had consented. I have no idea on whether or not the reasoning is legally valid. I assume the court would find some similarity to the security need that would allow a default airport search to be constitutional. I don’t necessarily agree with that, but it’s beyond my point here. Specifically, the case is being influenced by this:

Rick Zabak, an attorney for the Tampa Sports Authority, the government agency that runs the stadium, said he’s trying to determine whether the court’s decision allows the searches to automatically resume at the Buccaneers first preseason game Aug. 10 or if he has to ask a court to reinstate them.

Operating a sports stadium is never going to qualify as a public good. No government should be involved.

If the team owned the stadium, the ruling would be a slam-dunk touchdown. As a private entity, the Buccaneers have the right to put in place such a security measure. If you don’t like it, don’t buy a ticket to the game. It’s that simple.

The court relied on the correct notion that there is no “constitutional right to watch a football game”. But the city placed itself in charge of how fans may partake of that activity. Perhaps the city has evidence to suggest its stadium is at high-risk of an incident. Watching Black Sunday one too many times doesn’t count. When it (incorrectly) controls access in this manner, it should have a higher burden than fans are aware of the search policy in advance and that tickets can be revoked by the team.

This case stinks of all that is wrong in public financing of preferred private ventures.

Catching Up: Random Links

I’ve been pre-occupied the last few days, so I haven’t caught up on my blogging duties the way I should. Refunds will be processed upon request. To discourage you from seeking that refund, here are a few stories stuck in my queue:

Courtesy of a Robert Novak column from last week:

Addressing a Republican fundraising dinner at the Washington Convention Center on Wednesday night, President Bush declared: “If the Democrats want to test us, that’s why they give the president the veto. I’m looking forward to vetoing excessive spending, and I’m looking forward to having the United States Congress support my veto.” That was more than blather for a political pep rally. Bush plans to veto the homeland security appropriations bill nearing final passage, followed by vetoes of eight more money bills sent him by the Democratic-controlled Congress.

Better late than never would be how I’d like to analyze that. Unfortunately, we’re mostly discussing a 14% increase versus a 7% increase and a 30% increase versus a 22% increase. This isn’t fiscal conservatism. Consolation from the lesser of two evils, anyone?

Next, government understanding of economics always achieves its predictable unintended consequences:

Beef prices are up. So are the costs of milk, cereal, eggs, chicken and pork.

And corn is getting the blame. President Bush’s call for the nation to cure its addiction to oil stoked a growing demand for ethanol, which is mostly made from corn. Greater demand for corn has inflated prices from a historically stable $2 per bushel to about $4.

Economic laws are inviolable, not suggestions open to the good intentions of government policy-makers.

Continuing on a similar theme, that politicians believe reality is subject to the whims of the United States government and can simply be legislated into existence, this:

“America deserves more-fuel-efficient cars,” said Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington. But she added that “the only way consumers are going to get more out of a tank of gas is if the president and his party help deliver votes in a narrowly divided Congress.”
…

“America’s strength lies in our ability to invent new and better ways of doing things,” she said. “The challenge we face now is transforming America’s energy policy — one that is well over 50 years old and too reliant of fossil fuels — to one that will make America a global leader again in energy technology and get us off our overdependence on foreign oil.”

Congress (and the president) can legislate creativity and innovation. And it comes with a centrally planned national energy policy. That should work out well. Just look at corn and ethanol.

Freedom for $1.05 or drugs for $2?

The words leading to the coordinating conjunction in this story’s lede sentence gives the reader more than enough information to know how this will affect drug enforcement policy.

A cheap, highly addictive drug known as “cheese heroin” has killed 21 teenagers in the Dallas area over the past two years, and authorities say they are hoping they can stop the fad before it spreads across the nation.

“Cheese heroin” is a blend of so-called black tar Mexican heroin and crushed over-the-counter medications that contain the antihistamine diphenhydramine, found in products such as Tylenol PM, police say. The sedative effects of the heroin and the nighttime sleep aids make for a deadly brew.

We’re going to get fear to justify more brutal attempts to enforce prohibition. It’s stupid, but typical. And being so obvious, it’s not what warrants the most attention. Better to start here:

“Cheese” is not only dangerous. It’s cheap. About $2 for a single hit and as little as $10 per gram. The drug can be snorted with a straw or through a ballpoint pen, authorities say. It causes drowsiness and lethargy, as well as euphoria, excessive thirst and disorientation. That is, if the user survives.

I expected a multimedia presentation with the requisite pause and ominous drumbeat after that last sentence.

It makes no sense to pretend that something like “cheese heroin” is bad. I’m sure it is. But what evidence do we get to excuse “if the user survives”? After all, we’re told that 21 teens have died in 24 months. That’s an awful statistic, but outside of some other context, it doesn’t tell us anything meaningful.

Authorities say the number of arrests involving possession of “cheese” in the Dallas area this school year was 146, up from about 90 the year before. School is out for the summer, and authorities fear that the students, with more time on their hands, could turn to the drug.

The first statistic we get is an approximation that 236 people were arrested for possessing this drug in the two years in which 21 students have died. I’m left wondering whether these arrests involved teens or not since the article doesn’t say. It does use the academic calendar to measure arrests. That’s a quaint device.

But looking at the numbers, are we to assume that almost 10% of users die? Highly unlikely, for no rational person would believe that Dallas police have arrested every possessor of “cheese”. (I’m sure they’ve tried, mightily.) I’m still left trying to triangulate a rational context for this hyper-fear.

Drug treatment centers in Dallas say teen “cheese” addicts are now as common as those seeking help for a marijuana addiction. “It is the first drug to have even come close in my experience here,” says Michelle Hemm, director of Phoenix House in Dallas.

Without hard numbers¹ it’s difficult to draw concrete conclusions, but I’m guessing the number of marijuana users addicts is high enough that a comparison implying a 10% death rate among “cheese” users is flawed. So the death rate is lower, as a percentage. What percentage are we looking at? Is the level of fear and panic implied in this story justified?

I don’t have the answer, unfortunately. Again, I’m sure “cheese heroin” is nasty, dangerous stuff. But I’m left wondering if there isn’t a message in this story about prohibition?

[Dallas police detective Monty] Moncibais then asked how many students knew a “cheese” user. Just about everyone in the auditorium raised a hand. At one point, when he mentioned that the United States has the highest rate of drug users in the world, the middle schoolers cheered.²

“You know, I know being No. 1 is important, but being the No. 1 dopeheads in the world, I don’t know whether [that] bears applause,” Moncibais shot back.

Decades of prohibition and we’re the best at having people use drugs. A sane policy would not continue pursuing prohibition at all costs. It would acknowledge that people will use drugs, despite a general consensus among fans of prohibition that drug use is bad. Reasonable officials would seek to minimize the damage from that drug use instead of trying to win an unwinnable “war”, even if it meant decriminalization.

But that doesn’t win elections or justify larger budgets. Fear does that.

¹ The next paragraph in the article:

From September 2005 to September 2006, Phoenix House received 69 “cheese” referral calls from parents. Hemm says that in the last eight months alone, that number has nearly doubled to 136. The message from the parents is always, “My kid is using ‘cheese,’ ” she says.

That provides more numbers, but I don’t think they help or hurt my argument.

² At this point in the story, CNN has a video link titled “Watch middle schoolers raise hands, admit they know drug users”. I laughed at the stupid absurdity.

“Congress shall make no law…”

The NCAA kicked a reporter out of the press box for liveblogging a game at the baseball super-regional yesterday. I find that absurd, but the NCAA can set whatever restrictions it wants. What’s amusing is the inevitable reaction from the reporter’s newspaper:

Courier-Journal executive editor Bennie L. Ivory challenged the NCAA’s action last night and said the newspaper would consider an official response.

“It’s clearly a First Amendment issue,” Ivory said. “This is part of the evolution of how we present the news to our readers. It’s what we did during the Orange Bowl. It’s what we did during the NCAA basketball tournament. It’s what we do.”

It’s clearly not a First Amendment issue. The government has played no part in this. This is a dispute between two private parties who agreed to a set of rules. Obviously one party is either misunderstanding or ignoring the rules. But the government didn’t violate any free speech right.

Convoluted hat tip required. Link found at Instapundit, via KnoxNews, which linked from Poynter Online.

Semantic lunacy demonstrates intellectual lunacy.

Via Hit & Run, I see that Nebraska has an interesting understanding of the Constitution and legislating.

A member of the Kansas group that has drawn criticism for protesting at soldiers’ funerals has been arrested for letting her 10-year-old son stomp on a U.S. flag during a demonstration. She promised Wednesday to challenge the state’s flag desecration law in court.

Shirley Phelps-Roper, 49, will be charged with flag mutilation, disturbing the peace and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, Sarpy County Attorney Lee Polikov said Wednesday.
…

Nebraska’s flag law says: “A person commits the offense of mutilating a flag if such person intentionally casts contempt or ridicule upon a flag by mutilating, defacing, defiling, burning, or trampling upon such flag.”

Let me understand this. In Nebraska, it’s illegal to “mutilate” a flag, but it’s legal to mutilate a boy’s penis. <sarcasm>That seems reasonable.</sarcasm>

I don’t gamble online, but I like liberty.

I’m watching today’s proceedings by the House Committee on Financial Services. The subject is “Can Internet Gambling Be Effectively Regulated to Protect Consumers and the Payments System?”. I’ve already learned that Alabama Congressman Spencer Bachus is a moron. I’m paraphrasing until I can find a transcript, but he had the nerve to suggest that Congress should not repeal last year’s anti-gambling bill because the NBA, NFL, MLB, and NCAA have all come out against online gambling. I’m fairly certain that the Constitution matters more than what David Stern and Bud Selig believe is best for America. I don’t recall electing them to any public office.

Also worth noting, there are several witnesses for the Committee. I’m only familiar with Radley Balko. While I’m sure he’ll overwhelm the Committee with something most politicians aren’t comfortable with (logic), I’m pessimistic simply because several members of the committee have already gone out of their way to praise a minister who will testify that his son ended up in jail as a result of his addiction to internet gambling. Good grief.

Also, Rep. Barney Frank is slaying the nonsense of the conservative members when they claim that no one should have the liberty because a few people can abuse that liberty in a way that harms themselves. Bravo. Now, maybe he’ll apply that to his other, less liberty-minded economic ideas.

Update 1: Rep. Frank smacked down Rep. Bachus by referring to our professional sports leagues as “arbiters of absolute moral superiority.” He drew a large chuckle from the tiny crowd.

I’d like to buy the world a Coke water.

Here’s a “scary scenario”, courtesy of the Sudanese ambassador to Washington during his press conference in response to economic sanctions in response to the ongoing atrocity in Darfur.

… John Ukec Lueth Ukec, the Sudanese ambassador to Washington — held a news conference at the National Press Club yesterday to respond to President Bush’s new sanctions against his regime. In his hour-long presentation, he described a situation in his land that bore no relation to reality.

During the bulk of the press conference, the ambassador denied any deaths in Sudan, while contradicting himself that it was only collateral damage, comparable to U.S. actions in Iraq. Clearly, he’s reaching for anything. Continuing:

What’s more, the good and peaceful leaders of Sudan were prepared to retaliate massively: They would cut off shipments of the emulsifier gum arabic, thereby depriving the world of cola.

“I want you to know that the gum arabic which runs all the soft drinks all over the world, including the United States, mainly 80 percent is imported from my country,” the ambassador said after raising a bottle of Coca-Cola.

A reporter asked if Sudan was threatening to “stop the export of gum arabic and bring down the Western world.”

“I can stop that gum arabic and all of us will have lost this,” [the ambassador] warned anew, beckoning to the Coke bottle. “But I don’t want to go that way.”

I know nothing of soft drink ingredients, other than they consist mostly of sugar. I don’t understand the chemistry of why gum arabic is essential, or how it works. It doesn’t really matter. Should Sudan retaliate by prohibiting the export of gum arabic, I have a strong suspicion that Coca-Cola and Pepsi will figure out an alternative approach to making their soft drinks. Inevitably, his threat will fail to achieve his desired results.

That doesn’t mean he won’t achieve results. He will, but the citizens of Sudan who rely on gum arabic exports will be harmed. Their income and trade will shrink, exacerbating an already questionable situation. Dictators have a funny way of not caring about that. The U.S. will probably get the international blame for that, even though it will be clear where it should fall.

The issue is meddlesome big government.

Here’s an interesting twist on a bad idea, this time from England:

Secret plans to encourage the nation to give up eating meat are being examined by the Government.

A leaked e-mail expresses sympathy for the environmental benefits of a mass switch to a vegan diet – a strict form of vegetarianism which bans [sic!] milk, dairy products and fish.

The change would need to be done “gently” because of a “risk of alienating the public”, according to the document.

The extreme [sic!] policy is being examined on the basis it could make a major contribution to slowing climate change.

Success from this campaign would help, for various reasons. And as a vegan, I’d love such success. People going vegan would help, for various reasons. And as a vegan, I’d love a mass conversion to veganism. I’m not cheering, though, because diet isn’t the government’s business.

But how is this any different than the advocacy we have in the United States, where the government pushes meat and dairy through its ridiculous food pyramid and subsidies for those favored industries?

The majority doesn’t want their tax dollars used to promote my diet. They should understand that I don’t want my tax dollars used to promote their diet. Simply being in the majority does not validate an opinion.

Via Arkanssouri by way of A Stitch in Haste

Update (06/03/07): I’ve struck two sentences that made my aversion to government involvement in promoting specific diets unclear. The new sentences better say what I meant.

History will wonder why all businesses employ 14 people.

Sen. Barack Obama hates liberty. And economics. And jobs. And health care. There’s no other way to describe the eventual outcome of his fantasy world where wishes lead to outcome.

Mr. Obama would pay for his plan by allowing President Bush’s tax cuts for the most affluent Americans — those making over $250,000 a year — to expire. Officials estimated that the net cost of the plan to the federal government would be $50 billion to $65 billion a year, when fully phased in.

The Obama proposal includes a new requirement that employers either provide coverage to their employees or pay the government a set proportion of their payroll to provide it. …

Obama advisers said the smallest businesses would be exempt from this requirement. The advisers said that those business might have under 15 employees, but that no number has been set.

And on it goes with the make-believe. Soak the rich. Corporations are evil. Government can solve every problem if given enough money. Why can’t progressives make some progress in understanding economics?

I’m sure I’ll have more later on this. For now, it’s late, so let it stand that this is a bad idea and will lead to reduced employment, less health care, and lower quality. That’s not a perfect trifecta for a man who wants to lead our country.

I can excuse a lot in voting, but I don’t let ignorance slide. Sen. Obama will not receive my vote in 2008.

People will continue to commit evil acts.

This letter to the editor of Time, in response to the Virginia Tech shootings, is curious. The letter writer is from Toronto, so his perspective on our Constitution is probably a little bit different. Yet, what he says is similar to what we hear from many gun-control proponents in the United States. Here’s an excerpt:

If there are protections in the Constitution, drag that document kicking and screaming into the 21st century by amending it. Let the military and the police have their weapons, and let legitimate hunters and farmers have their long guns. But everyone else? Just let them try to club or stab 32 people to death in one go.

Marc Kramer, TORONTO

Clearly he misses the point that gun ownership among the citizenry is meant as a deterrent to tyrannical government, the kind where “the military and the police have their weapons”. To be fair, Mr. Kramer does not expect all citizens to be disarmed. I am left wondering who will decide who qualifies as a “legitimate” hunter? A farmer? So in the process of disarming citizens, we’re also to give the government the power to decide who meets a narrow definition of acceptable (long gun) gun owners. This argument is far too deferential to state power.

Still, Mr. Kramer’s argument disintegrates in the end because he implies that banning guns will end mass murder. I’m sure someone would have a difficult time stabbing 32 people to death in one go. But what about driving their car into a crowded area? Although these accidents weren’t intentional, is it crazy to believe that someone with murderous intentions could try the same? Should we now ban cars, except for those few who “need” them?

Guns and cars are different. I get that. But we’re not discussing them in the everyday, intended use context. We’re discussing what can be a weapon? Cars can easily be made a weapon, as can many different otherwise innocent objects. When put together, they can become a bomb.

The discussion must move beyond the simplistic “guns are icky and the Constitution is outdated for allowing them”.