Politics

I doubt it would help

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

This article on the BP oil spill is pretty sickening to read. If I tried to quote select passages, I’d just end up copy and pasting the whole thing. Basically, it’s sorely evident BP made decisions that, while you can’t prove they caused the disaster, they do lend strong support to the notion that these sorts of decisions certainly contributed. Basically, they took shortcuts, wanted things done faster, cheaper. While I can’t necessarily fault them for that, given what’s on the line (lives, billions of dollars, environmental disaster), well… evidently the execs can put a (cheap) price on it all.

And so, some people claim this is a failing of the free-market and proof that we need more governmental oversight and regulation.

Folks, all the oversight in the world wouldn’t stop this, and it’s also not a failing of the free market.

It’s one simple thing that caused it.

Basic human greed.

I have no problem with making money. If I could swim like Scrooge McDuck through an ocean of money, I’d be happy to do so. But there’s something to be said for putting your personal greed above all else. They just saw the dollar signs, they didn’t care about anything else… and this is how they — and the whole world — will now pay for it.

I do believe one can be moral and ethical and still make lots of money. It’s not a matter of government control, it’s not a matter of free-market… neither caused this, neither will solve this. Greed is orthogonal to those things, and greed is the real problem. And frankly, it’s what sort of free-market we have that is really going to make BP (and all future oil companies) understand why the course of action and internal company decisions that led up to this is never a road to again go down. Let’s hope we all can learn from this and never do it again.

Free to choose

/ hsoi

John Stossel’s latest article is titled “Free to Choose”.

I always find it interesting how the “enlightened” amongst us love the notion of choice, when it benefits them. That choice is good, when it’s a woman’s body. That choice is good, when we choose the lifestyle we lead. But then somehow choice becomes a bad thing when it comes to buying and selling goods and services. When it comes to our health, it’s bad that we’re allowed to choose (yet wasn’t it “my body, my choice”? I guess they can choose when to apply that choice.). Of course, so much of it comes down to them knowing what’s better for us — they can choose for us, because they know what’s best for us. Thank you, Mother.

But you see, the reason “free market” and true choice tends to work out better is because there are real consequences for failure. Stossel sums it up:

“The free market enables people … to trade with whomever they want; to buy in the cheapest market around the world; to sell in the dearest. … (B)ut most important of all: If they fail, they bear the cost.”

Actually, he’s quoting Milton Friedman. The point is solid: if they fail, they bear the cost.

When we look to government to solve our problems, it rarely works out. Why? Because they don’t bear the cost. Think about it. A businessman makes a bad business decision, spends all his money on a crappy ad campaign, it drums up no business for him, and he’ll go out of business. Thus why the businessman will do his best to make the right decisions up front because they don’t want to risk failure.

Ever notice when you have to turn to a government official or body for help on something, it doesn’t work out that great? Just take going to the DMV. Why don’t they care? Because even if they fail, even if all things suck, it doesn’t matter to them. They have no personal investment in the success (or failure) of the entity, of serving you, of anything. There is no choice in the matter.

So who ends up bearing the cost? I do. You do. That’s not how it should be. Yet there are those that continue to clamor for the government to solve all our ills, never thinking through the cost of making that fatal choice.

Editorial Response

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

The Austin American Statesman published an editorial regarding the recent issue with the metal detectors and how CHL holders have special handling in that regard.

As you might expect, the editorial was full of incorrect information and hysterics.

Jerry Patterson, Texas Land Commissioner, wrote a response to that editorial. I don’t know if the AAS will publish it, but here’s his response.

Statesman Editorial Board staff,

I don’t know who wrote Sunday’s editorial but it is chock full of bad information and needs to be corrected lest the public again be misinformed by a hoplophobic journalist with a bias.

The most glaring error is the writers belief that the State Preservation Board has the authority to ban lawfully carried firearms at the capitol. They do not. While they do have the authority to place metal detectors, ONLY the Texas penal code regulates where and how firearms can be carried, and Article 1 Section 23 of the Texas Bill of Rights states that a Texan has the right to “Keep and Bear Arms in the lawful defense of himself or the state” and that “the legislature shall have power by law to regulate the wearing of arms with a view to prevent crime”. This legislative exclusivity is further backed up by statute which pre empts any government entity or agency from regulating firearms (of course this doesn’t apply to federal regulation on federal property).

When I passed the CHL law in 1995, certain prohibited locations were enumerated. These locations were fine tuned again in 1997. The capitol was specifically not included as a prohibited location in part because of the hypocrisy of passing a law and then excluding the capitol where those of us who voted for the law spend our time. There can be no other prohibited locations, other than on private property or on federal property.

The statement that “most courthouses and other government buildings around the state” are gun banned locations is also false. ALL courthouses are prohibited locations because the legislature chose to ban by statute carry at courthouses, and NO state or local government buildings are prohibited locations because the legislature chose not to make them so. It is permissible to ban firearms at a “meeting of a government entity” if “effective notice” is given. What constitutes “effective notice” is specifically spelled out in PC 46.035. What that means is a city council could ban only in the council chambers, and only while the meeting is in progress, or the Senate or House could ban in the chamber or the gallery when actually in session. You cannot ban lawful carry of a firearm at the capitol, or at city hall, or the portion of any other state or local government building (exception: school buildings, prisons etc.) that is open to public access. That doesn’t mean cities or counties haven’t placed signs banning carry, but signs do not make law, and anyone who defies such a sign can suffer no penalty. I routinely ignore these signs.

The statement “Why anyone needs to carry a concealed gun in the capitol is beyond us,” begs the question: where in the writers opinion does anyone need to carry a concealed gun? We’ve had a crazed shooter at the capitol, could that be a reason maybe? We’ve had two elected officials murdered at the capitol (albeit a very long time ago) might that be a reason? I carry at the capitol, and candidly I don’t think I need to do so. I also have a smoke detector at my house that I don’t think I’m going to need. If one carries a firearm, making decisions based on this venue or that venue as being a “need to carry” or “not need to carry” venue is actually kind of humorous. Can you imagine the thought process of “I think I’m going to be accosted in the mall parking lot tonight so I’ll pack my gun, but I don’t think I’m going to be robbed walking from capitol parking to the capitol tomorrow night so I won’t”? Carrying a gun is like fire insurance, you don’t just have a policy when you believe you’re going to have a fire.

The Violence Policy Center is just not credible, and candidly has lied on more than one occasion, so their “data” that 166 people have been killed by CHL holders is suspect. How many of those CHL holding shooters were convicted of a crime? Might that be an important bit of information? Could it be that some, if not most of the 166 dead were in the process of committing an assaultive offense against the CHL holder? Has a citizen ever been wrongfully shot and killed by a police officer? Should we take guns away from the police?

To paraphrase the writers closing statement in the editorial:

“We promise, editorial writer, we won’t think you are any less of a journalist for correcting your errors”

Jerry Patterson Texas Land Commissioner,

Austin’s gun buy-back

/ hsoi / 9 Comments

Yesterday there was a gun buy-back program in Austin.

Of course, it’s being hailed as a massive success.

“The line is very shocking to me. We had people in the parking lot at 7:30 a.m. waiting to turn their guns in, and the event did not start until 9 a.m,” APD’s Sgt. Ely Reyes said.

Department officials ran out of grocery vouchers after about two and a half hours.

APD asked the community to turn in any gun, no questions asked. In exchange, people got anywhere from $10 to $200 in grocery store gift cards.

The $200 went for “assault rifles”. You know what? If you have an AK or AR and only got $200 for it? You got ripped off. When new AR’s sell for over $1000, you could have sold that used AR and made a lot more money… and gotten cash instead of just grocery gift cards.

“People like me who don’t use them, haven’t taken them out of the case for 25 years. If my house was broken into and stolen then they could be used against somebody else or for a crime,” participant Laurie Delong said.

So they didn’t actually take any guns “off the street”, they just took some old guns out of people’s closets. Again, I bet most of those guns could have been sold to dealers or private citizens and you would have fetched a lot more for your money. And the same end result would have happened: out of your house and into the hands of law-abiding people where they wouldn’t have been used against someone else or for a crime.

So 320 guns were collected and it’s a massive success.

You know how it actually can be measured if it’s a success or not? If it makes any sort of measurable impact in crime reduction in Austin. These groups put these things on as some sort of street-corner proselytizing towards crime prevention. Makes for good headlines, makes for good photo-ops, and makes some people feel better about themselves like they’re “doing something”. But until we can see it actually doing what it’s supposed to do — reducing the incidents of violent crime — then it’s nothing but a meaningless song and dance.

You can’t remain silent to remain silent

/ hsoi / 9 Comments

SCOTUS just ruled that, essentially, if you want the right to remain silent you have to speak up and explicitly invoke that right.

In a narrowly split decision, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority expanded its limits on the famous Miranda rights for criminal suspects on Tuesday – over the dissent of new Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who said the ruling turned Americans’ rights of protection from police abuse “upside down.”

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion, said a suspect who goes ahead and talks to police after being informed he doesn’t have to has waived his right to remain silent. Elena Kagan, who has been nominated by President Barack Obama to join the court, sided with the police as U.S. solicitor general when the case came before the court. She would replace Justice John Paul Stevens, one of the dissenters.

A right to remain silent and a right to a lawyer are at the top of the warnings that police recite to suspects during arrests and interrogations. But Tuesday’s majority said that suspects must break their silence and tell police they are going to remain quiet to stop an interrogation, just as they must tell police that they want a lawyer.

(h/t to EveryDayNoDaysOff for the link) Now, on the surface this looks rather twisted. It also looks like I might be agreeing with the Wise Latina® Justice:

“Criminal suspects must now unambiguously invoke their right to remain silent – which counterintuitively requires them to speak,” she said. “At the same time, suspects will be legally presumed to have waived their rights even if they have given no clear expression of their intent to do so. Those results, in my view, find no basis in Miranda or our subsequent cases and are inconsistent with the fair-trial principles on which those precedents are grounded.”

And to an extent, I am because yes, it doesn’t seem very logical that you must speak in order to remain silent.

But as with all things, the devil is in the details. I’m arm-chair quarterbacking here, and I am not a lawyer… I admit I don’t have the time to read the entire case, just going on what the Washington Post relays. But even in that, there is some important detail if you dig down.

The ruling comes in a case in which a suspect, Van Chester Thompkins, remained mostly silent for a three-hour police interrogation before implicating himself in a Jan. 10, 2000, murder in Southfield, Mich. He appealed his conviction, saying he had invoked his Miranda right to remain silent by remaining silent.

[…]

The officers in the room said Thompkins said little during the interrogation, occasionally answering “yes,” “no,” “I don’t know,” nodding his head and making eye contact as his responses. But when one of the officers asked him if he prayed for forgiveness for “shooting that boy down,” Thompkins said, “Yes.”

He was convicted, but on appeal he wanted that statement thrown out because he said he had invoked his Miranda rights by being uncommunicative with the interrogating officers.

Ah! There’s the details. You can’t pick and choose folks. You either stay silent or you talk — they are mutually exclusive states. This guy talked, thus by definition he’s not remaining silent. Maye he didn’t talk a lot, maybe he didn’t answer every question, but he still talked. I would believe a reasonable person would agree that if someone is talking, they’re not silent. If he’s cherry picking when he exercises his right, how is the questioner supposed to interpret that silence? As exercising of the right to remain silent? As just taking a few minutes to collect your thoughts before answering? That silence is your answer? It’s too ambiguous, and law isn’t a realm for ambiguity.

As far as I can tell, this ruling doesn’t appear to be as horrible as some wish to make it out to be. In this case, Thompkins evidently waived his right to remain silent by well… not remaining silent. Interspersing moments of silence amongst your lack of silence cannot be assumed to be an invocation of the Miranda right.

Put it this way, ever send an email to someone but you don’t get a reply? If you’re not expecting a reply that’s one thing, but let’s say in that email you asked the recipient a question. If you don’t get a reply to your emailed question, what do you assume? That lack of reply is silence, but what does that silence mean? Maybe the email never made it (e.g. mail server problems). Maybe the email got intercepted by anti-spam filtering. Maybe the recipient is out of the office and not checking email until their return next week. Maybe they’re researching the answer to your question. Maybe they’re slacking off. Maybe they don’t like you and don’t want to respond to you, ever. Maybe they just haven’t gotten around to it. Who knows what the reason could be for the lack of reply, for that silence. Should you take that silence to mean some particular thing? Well, you know what they say about “when you assume”. We do much better when there is explicit response, even if it’s to say “Hey man, not going to answer your question, stop emailing me.” because then at least you know instead of hanging in ambiguity. I would think the same applies to this Thompkins case, even tho on the surface yes, it seems odd to have to speak up to remain silent.

The metal detectors are in.

/ hsoi

So it starts. Metal detectors have been installed and X-ray machines are coming to the Texas State Capitol building.

And there’s a special line just for CHL holders.

I’m glad to know I could still walk into the capitol building. I don’t like that I get singled out and everyone now knows “hey, that dude’s got a gun”… kinda defeats the whole purpose of concealed carry. Granted I’m blogging about the fact, but it’s a contextual thing of walking into the building. Some sheep are going to see me walk through that special gate and get scared of me.

Of course, anyone that knows what it takes to legally obtain a handgun and then obtain a CHL and keep it? Then you’ll probably be happy to see such folk walk through the gate. But again, most sheep don’t know… but maybe they’ll be willing to click the above link and find out.

Mark Casey, a Katy engineer who was touring with his family, called the checkpoint policy “bizarre.”

“I would hope our officials feel safer in a building where only they are allowed to carry guns,” he said. “If terrorists and criminals with guns can’t get in, why does anyone need one in here?”

Why should only “our officials” be allowed to be armed? Why should the general citizenry be forced to be disarmed, in general, but also in this specific circumstance of participating in the legislative process?

And it’s not just a matter of getting into that premises. What about getting to that premises? Most violent crimes occur on sidewalks, parking lots, parking garages. If I was coming to the capitol building I’d have to leave my home, get in my car, drive downtown, park somewhere, walk to the building, do my business, then reverse the steps to go home. Anywhere along that route something ugly has the potential to happen. Am I to only have a means to defend myself in certain places but not others? So what should I do? Leave the gun in my car? That’s a prime way criminals obtain guns. Do you want to see that happen? Better to keep my firearm under my watch and control.

But the following I question:

A number of lobbyists who come and go at the Capitol several times each day — and who have been grousing about the checkpoints for months — say they plan to get concealed handgun permits so they can go through the express lane and save time. They said they do not plan to carry a weapon.

All the work they’ll have to do to get a CHL, just to avoid a few seconds at a checkpoint. It’s my understanding the CHL will be checked at the checkpoint to ensure it’s still valid, which I’m sure is going to take a couple of minutes to do. Is that really a time-saver?  Please, if you think the policy and procedure is inefficient, work to improve it. Getting a CHL just because you think it puts you in the fast lane really isn’t the right way to solve the problem.

Must be nice

/ hsoi

Billionaire ends up on the no-fly list. Has no problem getting removed.

Boy… must be nice to be so rich and have such strong political ties.

Of course, we still have to wonder how he got on the list in the first place.

Due process?

Gosh, don’t you feel safe now?

Policy FAIL

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

So a 7th grade girl does the right thing: she says no to drugs.

She gets suspended anyway.

The girl did not bring the prescription drug to her Jeffersonville, IN school, nor did she take it, but she admits that she touched it and in Greater Clark County Schools that is drug possession.

[…]

“She was talking to another girl and me about [these pills she had] and she put one in my hand and I was like, ‘I don’t want this,’ so I put it back in the bag and I went to gym class,” said Rachael.

[…]

But just saying no didn’t end the trouble for Rachael. During the next period, an assistant principal came and took Rachael out of class. It turned out the girl who originally had the pills and a few other students got caught. That’s when the assistant principal gave Rachael a decision.

“We’re suspending you for five days because it was in your hand,” said Rachael.

You’ve got to be kidding me. She touched it. She didn’t ask to touch it. The other girl put the pill in her hand, she said “no” and put the pill back. Good for Rachael!

And for that, she get suspended.

So, exactly what message are these school officials trying to send?

According to Greater Clark County Schools district policy, even a touch equals drug possession and a one week suspension.

“The fact of the matter is, there were drugs on school campus and it was handled, so there was a violation of our policy,” said Martin Bell, COO of Greater Clark County Schools.

Ah. The message is we’re a bunch of unthinking drones and will hide behind “policy”. No one of course takes responsibility for making this policy, and no one stands up against poor policies. Furthermore, no one has the ability to apply a little “critical thinking” (I thought they still taught that in public government schools, I could be wrong) and realize this is poor policy and poorer enforcement of the policy? Wither education. Wither respect for and trust in (by children) adults, administrators, policy makers.

District officials say if they’re not strict about drug policies no one will take them seriously.

Yeah, and if you act like a bunch of unthinking jackasses, no one will take you seriously either.