Tag: hit&run

• For the first time in decades, the Washington,
  D.C. police department
  will begin accepting applications for concealed carry permits.
  The move is a direct result of a recent federal court ruling that
  struck down the city’s handgun ban.
• U.S. airstrikes
  killed hundreds of ISIS terrorists in Kobani, Syria,
  today.
• Michigan officials could
  charge up to 30 kids with felony child porn charges for sexting
  with each other. We are supposed to take solace in the fact that
  they will likely be treated as juveniles.
• Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent John Deasy
  
  resigned today. He seems to be leaving on good terms, although
  some of policies—the iPad
  debacle, for instance—proved controversial.
• Ezra Klein faces continued
  criticism over his support for “Yes Means Yes.”
• 
  Selena Gomez to adult critics: “I wish I could just sit them
  down and say, ‘What were you doing at 15? What were you doing at
  18? What were you doing at 21?’ Because I can guarantee you it’s
  not half of what I’ve done.”

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America’s sexual revolution handed women control over their
sexual destiny while hanging on to liberal notions of justice and due process. But now affirmative
consent or “yes-means-yes” law proponents think that these notions
are inconvenient obstacles in their quest to deliver total safety
to women. Rape, they claim, is such a big problem that they have to
trade in their “ends don’t justify the means” philosophy with “by
any means necessary” battle cry.

Boosting these efforts is Ezra Klein, the champion of the hot
new genre of fact-based explanatory journalism. He declares that
this “terrible law is necessary.” Why? Because there is an ugly
“culture of entitlement” among American men and “ugly problems
don’t have pretty solutions.”

What’s truly ugly, I note in The Week, is accepting
totalitarian notions of justice to address a problem that is
nowhere near as rampant as the proponents of “yes means yes” laws
claim and that women are perfectly capable of handling on their
own.

Indeed, if the rape culture was rampant, not only would it show
up in reliable statistics, but women’s behavior too. For example, I
note:

Scout Willis, Bruce Willis and Demi Moore’s daughter, wouldn’t
have fearlessly strolled topless in Manhattan to protest
Instagram’s policies against nude pictures last summer. Sure, she’s
quasi-famous. But nonetheless, try doing that in the pre-sexual
revolution America or modern-day India (my native country) without
getting assaulted or worse.

Willis chose going topless as her form of protest precisely
because, contrary to Klein’s assertion, there is no longer a
“culture of entitlement” among American men. Her stunt was possible
only because social mores that used to work against women now work
for them. Far from facing any sanction, she could count on those
around her acknowledging — even cheering (like me) — her right to
wield her sexuality as she saw fit without becoming prey to jerks
who believe she’s “asking for it.”

Go
here to read the whole thing.

The Daily Caller
has a column by a cop writing under the name “Deputy Matt” who
complains about how much harder his job has become since Ferguson,
Missouri, became a national news story. The cop begins by telling a
story about responding to a call about a belligerent teenage son in
a “fairly nice complex” where they were “able to calm him and get
him into handcuffs without any blows being thrown” but not before
the teen refused to follow their orders. According to the cop, the
teen, who he described as half-white and half-Hispanic, said he
wouldn’t listen to the cops because he didn’t trust them because of
“Ferguson.” The cop says the parents apologized “profusely” for
their son’s comment.

Deputy Matt says he works 1,700 miles from Ferguson but that
it’s become the “latest defense for committing crime,” presumably
by people who would be committing crimes anyway, but that this
time:

The same people who we used to count on for support, the good,
law abiding general public, are now reluctant to trust us.

We, the local cops they have seen and contacted in the past,
have not changed.  We have done nothing different.

What has changed is the public’s perception of us, created by
the reckless reporting by nearly every news outlet very early after
the shooting of Michael Brown. The rush to be first with the story
over the desire to be correct is having dire consequences
nationwide, and quite honestly, has made my job more difficult and
more dangerous.

Were Michael
Brown the only person police shot since August, or in August,
or if he were the only unarmed person shot that week or anywhere
close to it, Deputy Matt’s complaints, where they’re accurate,
might have some merit.

Reporting about Ferguson isn’t what’s caused the public’s trust
in the police. Increased attention to long-existing patterns and
practices of police brutality, from California to New York island,
thanks in part to the ubiquity
of personal recording devices, has been eroding that trust for far
longer than Ferguson’s been in the news.

It’s important to note, too, in the face of Deputy Matt’s
chicken little-ish depictions, that cops remain, at
least according to Gallup, among the less distrusted
institutions in society, polling a fairly steady 50-ish percent
trust since Gallup started asking in
the early 1990s.

An interesting facet of the “Yes Means Yes”
campus rape debate is the overlap between the progressive liberal
feminist position and the Christian social conservative position.
Libertarianism’s two main opponents on culture issues are taking
similar stances—albeit for different reasons—that college students’
sex lives should be encumbered for the greater good of society.

Over at National Review,
David French doubles down on
Heather MacDonald’s assertion that we are witnessing the
unravelling of the sexual revolution—at least on college
campuses:

It turns out that sexual “liberation” has not led to sexual
fulfillment, but instead to a landscape littered with broken
hearts, long-lasting psychic pain, and a consequent desperate
effort to create and enforce a bizarre “neo-Victorian” sexual
ethic grounded not in any real morality, but instead in an effort
to use institutional power to shift the emotional,
psychological, and legal consequences of sexual regret and
ambiguity to men and — as much as possible — men alone.

Just like
those on the left who say something must be done
to challenge campus rape culture, French favors a college
intervention of sorts. For liberals, the answer is a law that tips
the scales of justice against those accused of sexual assault,
which will result in more wrongful convictions, more legal
disputes, and quite possibly, less sex (sex is sex, sure, but when
the government increases the likelihood of being expelled for
having it, one would expect a discouraging effect). For social
conservatives, the answer is Christian sexual norms. In fact, the
current kerfuffle over campus culture is a “Vindication of
Christian Sexual Ethics,” writes French:

This is exactly the time when Christians should step forward
with a different ideal, the holistic, healthy, and proven model of
sobriety always, chastity before marriage, and fidelity afterwards
— all because marriage is sacred, our bodies are a temple to God,
and we love our spouses more than we love our own lives. …

We must propose to replace the current mess
with something – not just point our fingers and
shake our heads at other people’s desperate foolishness.

And that something isn’t a new law, nor is it exactly a new
culture. It’s an old culture, an old morality, one that we can
never live perfectly but will be better for trying. And it’s one
that has the benefit of pointing us to the oldest story, the
story of our Creator and Redeemer.

So, Christians on campus — to the extent you’re still
allowed to meet and speak – now is your time to step into
the breach with a sexual ethics that is actually viable,
sustainable, and life-affirming, a sexual ethics that is grounded
in eternal values. It will likely be the best message you will ever
share.

My reaction: They are welcome to try that, as long as no one is
forcing anyone else. Everybody is free to be an advocate for a
cause—just don’t ask the government to mandate it. (And to be fair,
in the specific case of public university campuses, social
conservatives are almost universally the ones being aggressed
against rather than the aggressors.) I don’t expect such an
approach to work, nor do I agree that restoring antiquated sexual
norms is an inherently good idea. But they are free to attempt it
in non-coercive fashion.

MacDonald, on the other hand, is totally in favor of achieving
the Christian conservative goal vis a vis the governmental controls
favored by the left:

Unlike the overregulation of natural gas production, say, which
results in less of a valuable commodity, there is no cost to an
overregulation-induced decrease in campus sex. Society has no
interest in preserving the collegiate bacchanal. Should college
fornication become a rare event preceded by contract signing and
notarization, maybe students would actually do some studying
instead.

That’s a more obviously anti-freedom view, and should serve as
powerful reminder that libertarianism’s foes are always lying in
wait, ready to use the powers of the state to enforce some dubious
social good.

In any case, since depravity is the justification for government
action, it’s worth considering whether campus culture is indeed as
depraved as the far-left and far-right claim it to be. An
interesting exploration of hook-up culture
conducted by Time‘s Maia Szalavitz last year cast
doubt on some of the hand-wringing over declining teen
morality:

Despite racy headlines suggesting that college kids are
increasingly choosing casual liaisons over serious relationships, a
new study presented at the annual meeting of the American
Sociological Association finds that just under one-third of college
students have had more than one partner in the past year.

And that’s exactly the same proportion of students who were
surveyed between 1988 and ’96, and between 2002 and ’10; both
groups also had the same number of partners. So kids aren’t hooking
up more than they ever were, or even more than their parents did,
which is what recent media coverage has implied. …

How students think of their liaisons with fellow students has
clearly changed, and so has the college culture, apparently. All of
the evidence points to the fact that college kids today
are drinking
less, taking fewer drugs and even having less sex than their
parents’ generation. Hooking up just isn’t what it used to be.

Many journalists have also criticized the supposed epidemic of
college rape and insist that sexual assault rates on campuses are
not nearly as high as activists claim. The unavoidable conclusion
is that claims of depravity seem almost universally overhyped.

Whatever the actual levels of binge drinking and sexual assault
are on campuses, if people want to lessen them, I maintain that
they should join libertarians in demanding a lower drinking age.
Unlike clumsy consent regulations and outdated sexual norms, a
lower drinking age could actually incentivize better behavior for
reasons
I detailed here. As libertarians long have recognized, the
creation of a better society usually requires merely that the
government get out of the way—and that’s precisely what it should
do here.

Via
Alex Pappas of The Daily Caller comes this shot of a
female passenger traveling from Washington Dulles Airport
(IAD).

Lady, I don’t know who you are (though I suspect you’re
from the future). But if you ever run for office, you’ve got my
vote.

Seems about the right moment to take a knee and listen to

Shep Smith’s wonderful takedown of alarmist coverage of Ebola in
America.

Exit question: Is this a product-placement win or loss for
ailing retailer JCPenney?

Remember back in August when
armed goons hired by the Republican Party in Illinois were
harassing people who were gathering signatures to get the
Libertarian Party on the state’s ballot? They failed and a gym
manager named Chad
Grimm from Peoria will be on the ballot representing the party
in the race for governor.

The race is
very close. Incumbent Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn
hasn’t exactly showered himself in glory with any sort of
courage in attempting to address the state’s fiscal disasters.
There are only a couple of points between him and Republican
challenger Bruce Rauner for the November election. Grimm, though,
is bringing in between five and seven percent of the votes
according to various polls. That’s enough to influence the outcome
of the election.

As is typical, conventional wisdom is that Grimm will draw votes
from the right and harm Rauner’s chances (hence the intimidation).
But Quinn is a deeply unpopular governor, and it’s a mistake to
think Grimm would draw votes from only one side. A
RealClearPolitics poll average had Rauner ahead until just
recently. In order to improve turnout from the left, the Democratic
legislature put three red meat “advisory”
questions on the ballot—whether to increase the minimum wage,
require health insurers to cover birth control, and increase income
taxes on millionaires. None of these votes are binding in any way.
Both sides are obviously very worried about the outcome, and votes
for Grimm could come from either side or from people who would just
otherwise not vote.

Fox News contributor and former pollster for President Bill
Clinton Douglas E. Schoen takes note of the rising number of people

unwilling to join the ranks of either party:

[Grimm’s] role in the election is more about sending a message
to Illinois’s established politicians. And that leaves them with
little choice but to vote for Grimm. Either that, or they bite the
bullet and vote for the deeply unpopular Quinn, or Rauner, who’s
earned a reputation as a behind the scenes Republican donor.

For frustrated Americans, biting the bullet is less appetizing
than ever before.

As the races in Kansas and South Dakota show, people are
becoming less willing to vote for a candidate they perceive as the
lesser of two evils and more willing to see a vote for an
independent or third party candidate as a positive political
statement, rather than a wasted vote. 

Put another way, voters across America are looking for ways to
register their unhappiness with the state of our politics and the
quality of our politicians. Voting for a candidate like Grimm is
one way to do that.

Recently, Brian Doherty took a closer look at three other
Libertarian Party candidates who were polling well. Read
about them here.

I’m happy to announce that I’ll be appearing on
John Stossel’s eponymous Fox Business
show tonight.

It airs from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. Eastern Time and looks at the
continuing relevance (or not) of the Constitution.

Other guests include The Blaze‘s Glenn Beck, Project
Veritas’ James O’Keefe, and the Pacific Legal Foundation’s Timothy
Sandefur.

I’m talking about the long and storied tradition of
“fair-weather federalism.” Who would have guessed that politicians’
attitudes toward a strong central government or devolving power to
the states change depending on which arrangement helps them out on
any given issue?

There’s lots of interesting talk about the Bill of Rights,
especially the First Amendment which Stossel notes “made my career
possible. It allowed me to expose crooks and cheaters. Once, I had
a female producer take my urine to two abortion clinics who said I
was pregnant!”

More details here.

Two nurses who were involved in treating Ebola
virus victim Thomas Eric Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian
Hospital (THPH) in Dallas, Texas have now fallen ill. They were
evidently exposed to the infection through some failure in
procedures or equipment.

In the meantime, the four people who lived for four days in the
apartment where Duncan became progressively sicker after being
turned away from the emergency department at the THPH on September
24, so far do not appear to have come down with disease. (Just
checked for news.) The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention notes
that ” symptoms may appear anywhere from 2 to 21 days after
exposure to Ebola but the average is 8 to 10 days.”

The onset of Duncan’s symptoms was September 24, which means
that it has been 22 days since the folks in the apartment and the
emergency room personnel could have been first exposed to the
virus. The people from the apartment are
currently quarantined and, if they show no symptoms, are
expected to be released on Sunday, October 19.

Is there a signficant difference in the infectivity of early
stage Ebola patients compared to later stages when symptoms are
more severe? If so, this could bode well for the folks whose
contacts with Duncan and the ill nurses were early and fleeting.
Here’s hoping.

“There seems to be a sort of collective amnesia problem
regarding the Iraq War,” says Reason Foundation polling director
Emily Ekins.

Ekins is referring to a question contained in the October 2014
Reason-Rupe poll, which found that 51 percent of Americans recall
opposing the Iraq invasion in 2003. In reality, Pew found that most
Americans—72 percent—supported the war at the time of the
invasion. Ekins says its fairly common to find such discrepancies
in public opinion polling. People tend to want to say they
supported the winner and opposed the loser.

“And this tells us something about how Americans view the Iraq
War,” says Ekins.

Watch the video above for a deeper look at the foreign policy
opinions uncovered by the latest round of polling from Reason-Rupe,
or click the link below for a more detailed breakdown of results,
associated links, and downloadable versions of the video.

Produced by Zach Weissmueller. Camera by Paul Detrick. Music by
Chris Zabriskie.
Approximately 6 minutes.

View this article.

Fourteen years after the
release of the hit song “Because I Got High,” Afroman is still
toking. But these days he’s not rapping about skipping class,
losing his job, or getting chased by cops. Instead, he’s fighting
for legalization.

The singer teamed up with the National Organization for the
Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) and Weedmaps, a dispensary locator
app, to put out a new version of the classic tune. The remix was
released yesterday and already has some 500,000 views on
Youtube.

“This is a well-known anthem that is very famous across
generations. It’s something we’ve all kind of grown up with. It
just seemed like a really good opportunity to challenge the old
stereotype,” a NORML representative
tells Vice. 

Afroman sings about
medical benefits of cannabis, and forsaking recreational habits
like cigarettes, alcohol, and pharmaceutical drugs in favor of
marijuana.

And, for what it’s worth:

The state made revenue, because I got high

They built a school or two, because I got high

Now the state can fund drug treatment, and I know why …

No more criminal traps if it’s legalized

I don’t have to buy from gangbangers shooting craps, If it’s
legalized

Cut him some slack, since it’s just a fun song, but Afroman’s
lyrics are a bit pipedreamy. As Reason‘s Jacob Sullum has
covered extensively, the legalization of recreational marijuana in
Colorado and Washington hasn’t been flawless. Both states’ laws
can
trap medical patients and
recreational users, preventing them from ever driving a car
legally. And,
regulatory costs have made the cost legal weed in both states
substantially
higher than black market bud, so there
isn’t as much revenue for schools as one might hope.

The song’s release was coordinated with NORML’s “Smoke the Vote”
campaign, which is pushing for pro-marijuana legislation in Alaska,
Oregon, Washington, D.C., and Florida.