The Barr Code

Last week, Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue publicly expressed concern that a bill outlawing texting while driving would be too difficult to enforce and might suffer from constitutional infirmities.  However, as happens more frequently than not, the governor went ahead and signed the bill anyway.  This illustrates perfectly the story once told by former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, that  “although mankind might occassionally trip over the truth, it usually picks itself up, dusts itself off and continues on its merry way.”

Perdue’s bout of constitutional concern lasted only a few days before he succumbed to the public pressure to criminalize yet another activity.  In outlawing texting while driving, Georgia joins about two dozen other states that have similarly caught the anti-texting craze, being pushed at the national level by our federal transportation nanny, Ray LaHood.  Republican state legislators have shown themselves especially vulnerable to entreaties from …

Continue reading Georgia joins anti-texting hysteria »

This session of the 111th Congress has been one that will go down in infamy by virtue of its assault on privacy and other civil liberties.  Several of these problematic provisions have not yet made it to President Barack Obama’s desk, but in today’s political environment, resisting them will be difficult.  Many in the Congress still tremble as a result of the Times Square bombing attempt; even as many also remain gripped by the hysteria surrounding the as-yet unproven Toyota rogue acceleration problem.

The latest civil liberties victim of Times Square Brainiac Faisal Shahzad’s feeble attempt at terrorism fame is the pre-paid cell phone.  This innocuous device, available now to virtually anyone wishing to buy a cheap cell phone useable for a limited period, represents perhaps the last opportunity for a person to communicate anonymously.  Yet, these devices are being targeted for extinction by a pair of United States Senators simply because the failed Times Square bomber used …

Continue reading Pre-paid cell phones may be outlawed »

In the 1985 movie “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome,” Mel Gibson as the film’s hero is forced to participate in a bloody, to-the-death fight in a large cage from which he is not allowed to exit.  The bloody fighting was performed for the blood lust of the applauding audience.  This theatrical fight seems now, 25 years later, to have been a precursor to what has become a multi-million dollar entertainment industry known as “cage fighting.” 

Cage fighting is also referred to as “mixed martial arts” fighting and “ultimate fighting.”  While the organized aspect of the “sport” does not include among its attractions fights to the death, it clearly panders to the extreme violence craved by its large and growing audience in the U.S. and other countries (its modern rendition appears to have originated in Brazil).  Single matches staged in large metropolitan areas like Los Angeles can net tens of millions of dollars for promoters and participants.

A recent episode in which an off-duty cage …

Continue reading “Cage fighting” — spawn or parent of cultural violence? »

In a refreshing illustration of an administration coming into office and immediately taking steps to carry out a campaign promise, the new Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government in Great Britain, headed by Prime Minister David Cameron, has officially started the process of repealing the former, Labor government’s national ID card program.

The British national ID card program had been controversial from its inception several years ago, and actual implementation had started in 2008.  Notwithstanding the controversial nature of the project, and despite its high cost, the Labor governments of former prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown — reflecting their party’s penchant for surveillance and data-basing information – plowed ahead regardless. 

During the recent parilamentary campaign, both Cameron and Nick Clegg, who heads the Liberal Democrat Party and is now the country’s deputy prime minister, vowed to begin undoing some of their predecessors’ privacy-invasive …

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When Winston Churchill, then Prime Minister of Great Britain, addressed a joint gathering of the United States Senate and House of Representatives less than three weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, it was a speech delivered at the right time, in the right place, to the right people.  It helped strengthen and define Allied resolve for the looming battles against Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire. 

Yet, among the many speeches delivered over the decades by foreign heads of state to the Congress of the United States, Churchill’s December 26, 1941 address was the exception to the rule.  Most foreign leaders who are afforded this honor deliver largely forgettable lectures about how wonderful are the ties between their nations and ours; and often in support of receiving financial or military support from Washington.

Few foreign leaders, however, possess the audacity exhibited earlier this month by Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon when he spoke to the House and Senate in …

Continue reading Mexican president insults U.S., Congress cheers »

Here’s a law school hypothetical:  A person is convicted at trial of the offense of extortion.  He receives a sentence of 10 years.  Prior to his release from prison, however, the government decides he might very well commit another, similar offense if he is released from his sentence; so the government motions the court to have him detained in prison.  At a hearing on the motion, the government shows — by a lesser burden than “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” (the burden they must have met in order to have had him incarcerated in the first place), that he might very well commit another offense after his release.  So, the court orders him held beyond the end of his original sentence, and perhaps indefinitely, because he might similarly harm victims if he is released.  The law student would be required to respond to this hypothetical, with an analysis of whether such indefinite incarceration beyond a term of imprisonment for an offense passes constitutional muster.

The …

Continue reading Supreme Court okays indefinite prison for sex offenders »

Thousands of census workers, including many temporary employees, are fanning out across America to gather information on the citizenry.  This is a process that takes place not only every decade in order to complete the constitutionally-mandated census; but also as part of the continuing “American Community Survey” conducted by the Census Bureau on a regular basis year in and year out.

What many Americans don’t realize, is that census workers — from the head of the Bureau and the Secretary of Commerce (its parent agency) down to the lowliest and newest Census employee — are empowered under federal law to actually demand access to any apartment or any other type of home or room that is rented out, in order to count persons in the abode and for “the collection of statistics.”  If the landlord of such apartment or other  leased premises refuses to grant the government worker access to your living quarters, whether you are present or not, the landlord can be fined $500.00.

That’s …

Continue reading Census workers can enter your apartment in your absence »

“Nanny State” laws are popping up with increasing frequency as big-government advocates continue to be elected to offices from the city council to the White House.  What many Americans may not realize is the extent to which such invasive and pervasive government actions are spreading around the world, creating a “Nanny World.”

As usual, California, with its many ultra-liberal communities, is leading the way here in America.  Santa Clara County recently voted to outlaw the sale of McDonald’s “Happy Meal” toys and a host of other novelties (including coupons from which a patron might download a song) provided by restaurants as a bonus for customers who purchase certain drinks or food items.  As bizarre as is this most recent ban, if some of that county’s residents have their way, it will be followed by many more.  One resident of Sacramento, for example, reportedly voiced support for the recently-passed measure because even McDonald’s “190-calorie salad dressing and …

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The post-Times Square hysteria continues in the Congress.  In all-too-typical fashion, the “security-at-all-costs” crowd, led by Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, has introduced legislation that would empower federal bureaucrats to strip an American of their citizenship if the government decides they might have provided some sort of support to a terrorist organization.

On the surface, of course, many Americans likely would tend to support a law stripping citizenship from someone who has been proved to have engaged in terrorist acts against our country or our military; and Sen. Lieberman’s bill — the Terrorist Expatriation Act of 2010 – will therefore probably garner some not-insignificant degree of support in the Congress.  Such support, however, on more careful reading of the legislation, would be misplaced and set a dangerous precedent.

American citizenship is a right enjoyed by anyone born in this country or who has satisfied the requirements to become a naturalized …

Continue reading Knee-jerk “loss of citizenship” bill is unconstitutional and unnecessary »

I was in New York City the other day (being photographed no doubt dozens of times by Mayor Bloomberg’s mass of surveilllance cameras), and while walking by Time Square, noticed a scrolling headline billboard for CNN blaring to the world that the case of Jessica Colotl, the illegal alien student at Kennesaw State Universtiy in Georgia, was being labeled a “civil rights disaster.”  Say what?  A “civil rights disaster?”  In what sense?  Because a case is pending regarding the legal status of one single person unquestionably in this country unlawfully, and who apparently violated at least a few state laws  while she was at it (driving without a license, driving illegally, and giving false information to the police)?  Where are the “civil rights” here and what is the crisis?

Even more troubling than these ridiculous headlines building this case into an international incident of epic proportions, is the fact that many people are intent on making this young woman into a martyr of the …

Continue reading Illegal immigrant student is not a hero »