Category: reason

The commission of Clark County,
Nevada is expected to make a decision about a proposed ban on news
racks on and around Las Vegas Boulevard. Although the government
says the racks are a safety issue, people are fighting back,
calling the proposal an affront to local businesses and First
Amendment-protected rights.

There are an estimated 311 news racks along the Las Vegas Strip,
as well as on cross streets, that could be eliminated. They feature
everything from magazines and tourist information to advertisements
for call girls. If the county commission has its way in a battle it
has been waging
for years, the businesses that operate the racks would have to
remove them by Jan. 1.

Now, people are pushing back in defense of free speech, business
freedom, and common sense.

The Las Vegas Sun quotes one rack owner, Kathryn
Gentile, who
speculated, “I don’t think it’s a secret that adult-oriented
businesses and advertisements have always been disfavored. I
believe this is simply another attempt to ban that and circumvent
the First Amendment.”

The ACLU is taking sides with Gentile. Allen Lichtenstein, the
general counsel of the ACLU’s Nevada branch
said, “The biggest problem with the proposal is that it
completely does away with a particular mode of communication, not
just within a small area, but within a much wider area — the resort
corridor. They don’t really have a justification for getting rid of
this First Amendment outlet.” Lichtenstein also pointed out that
eliminating news racks will not eliminate sidewalk congestion.
Instead, the problem could be exacerbated by an influx of people
handing out ads to replace the stationary bins.

Erik Pappa, a county spokesperson
disagreed, insisting that the issue was over safety. “We did
this pedestrian study… We had these guys look at pedestrian flow
up and down the Strip, and they found a bunch of bottlenecks. They
need to remove the obstructions.” He assured, “It’s strictly based
on the need to improve traffic flow because of the safety issues
involved,” he said.

“This is my livelihood. I was going to hand this down to my
kids. It’s a family-owned business,” explained another rack owner,
Eddie Munoz. He
told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he plans to
file a lawsuit if the commission approves the ban.

One could also question if this is the best allocation of time
and resources for the government to improve safety on the streets
of Las Vegas. After all, the city has nearly
double the national median violent crime rate, and experiences
more than four times the number of crimes per mile as the national
median.

More reporting from the ethical and moral horror show of
America’s “war on terror,”
via the UK Guardian:

Doctors and psychologists working for the US military violated
the ethical codes of their profession under instruction from the
defence department and the CIA to become involved in
the torture and degrading treatment of suspected terrorists, an
investigation has concluded.

The report of the Taskforce on Preserving Medical
Professionalism in National Security Detention Centres concludes
that after 9/11, health professionals working with the military and
intelligence services “designed and participated in cruel, inhumane
and degrading treatment and torture of detainees”.

Medical professionals were in effect told that their ethical
mantra “first do no harm” did not apply, because they were not
treating people who were ill.

The report lays blame primarily on the defence department (DoD)
and the CIA, which required their healthcare staff to put aside any
scruples in the interests of intelligence gathering and security
practices that caused severe harm to detainees, from waterboarding
to sleep deprivation and force-feeding.

The two-year review by the 19-member taskforce, Ethics Abandoned:
Medical Professionalism and Detainee Abuse in the War on Terror,
supported by the Institute
on Medicine as a Profession (IMAP) and the Open Society
Foundations, says that the DoD termed those involved in
interrogation “safety officers” rather than doctors. Doctors and
nurses were required to participate in the force-feeding of
prisoners on hunger strike, against the rules of the World Medical
Association and the American Medical Association. Doctors and
psychologists working for the DoD were required to breach patient
confidentiality and share what they knew of the prisoner’s physical
and psychological condition with interrogators and were used as
interrogators themselves. They also failed to comply with
recommendations from the army surgeon general on reporting abuse of
detainees….

“Putting on a uniform does not and should not abrogate the
fundamental principles of medical professionalism,” said IMAP
president David Rothman. “‘Do no harm’ and ‘put patient interest
first’ must apply to all physicians regardless of where they
practise.”The taskforce wants a full investigation into the
involvement of the medical profession in detention centres. It is
also calling for publication of the Senate intelligence committee’s
inquiry into CIA practices and wants rules to ensure doctors and
psychiatrists working for the military are allowed to abide by the
ethical obligations of their profession; they should be prohibited
from taking part in interrogation, sharing information from
detainees’ medical records with interrogators, or participating in
force-feeding, and they should be required to report abuse of
detainees.

The full report
can be downloaded here.

While most
people have discovered through personal experience that the
government was lying to them about marijuana’s hazards, Jacob
Sullum says, it is easier to demonize less popular drugs such as
crack cocaine and methamphetamine. Any attempt to question the use
of force in dealing with these drugs therefore must begin by
separating reality from horror stories, Sullum writes in
Forbes, and that is where Columbia
neuropsychopharmacologist Carl Hart comes in.

Read this article.

“Psychedelic Science: Magic Mushrooms” is the latest video from
ReasonTV. Watch above or click on the link below for video, full
text, supporting links, downloadable versions, and more Reason TV
clips.

View this article.

Last week I
noted that anti-drug activists in Maine had asked Portland’s
transit agency to reject bus ads supporting a ballot measure that
would repeal local penalties for possessing small amounts of
marijuana. Such viewpoint-based censorship in a “designated public
forum” would have been clearly unconstitutional. But at least no
one said advocates of marijuana legalization should be arrested. No
one, that is, except Ruben Santiago, interim police chief of
Columbia, South Carolina’s capital. Popehat‘s Ken
White
reports that Santiago recently cited a resident’s
criticism of marijuana prohibition as grounds for a criminal
investigation.

The threat came in response to a Facebook comment by Brandon
Whitmer, who was unimpressed by Santiago’s
announcement of a local pot bust. “Maybe u should arrest the
people shooting people in 5 points [a Columbia neighborhood]
instead of worrying about a stoner that’s not bothering anyone,”
Whitmer said. “It’ll be legal here one day anyway.” To which
Santiago replied:

@Brandon whitmer, we have arrested all the violent offenders in
Five points. Thank you for sharing your views and giving us
reasonable suspicion to believe you might be a criminal, we will
work on finding you. 

That post quickly disappeared, creating the impression that the
author had thought better of threatening critics of the drug war
with arrest. Not so! Santiago later posted this:

This is Interim Chief Santiago posting. I was just notified that
one of my staff members deleted my post. I put everyone on notice
that if you advocate for the use of illegal substances in the City
of Columbia then it’s reasonable to believe that you MIGHT also be
involved in that particular activity[. T]hreat? Why would someone
feel threaten[ed] if you are not doing anything wrong? Apply the
same concept to gang activity or gang members. You can have gang
tattoos and advocate that life style, but that only makes me
suspicious of them, I can’t do anything until they commit a crime.
So feel free to express yourself, and I will continue to express
myself and what we stand for. I am always open to hearing how our
citizens feel like we can be effective in fighting crime.

In response to an inquiry from White, a Columbia Policy
Department (CPD) spokesman confirmed that Santiago had indeed
written the two posts but suggested his comments had been
misinterpreted:

Chief was trying to say that he puts would-be-criminals on
notice—if you commit a crime or plan to commit one, CPD will work
hard to investigate and press charges according to the law.

It’s easy for social media posts to be misunderstood.

In other words , when Santiago said Whitmer’s criticism of a pot
bust provided “reasonable suspicion to believe you might be a
criminal” and added that “we will work on finding you,” he was
making a statement about his department’s professionalism. Or lack
thereof.

A few months ago Ed Krayewski
noted that Dave Navarro, a former CPD captain, had accused
Santiago of plotting to frame Assistant City Manager Allison Baker.
Santiago responded with a
defamation suit against Navarro.

[Thanks to Allen St. Pierre for the tip.]

President Obama’s
famous promise that Americans would be able to keep health
plans they like, even after the passage of Obamacare, has proven to
be so much bullshit. Caught between immovable quotes and
irresistable reality, Barry and friends now double down, explaining
to us that, yes it was a lie, but the deception was for the greater
good, whether or not we individually have been shafted. Welcome to
a world of bare-faced paternalism, in which pundits and presidents
sigh in relief at finally treating us all as so many little pieces
in the snap-together Lego world they’re cobbling together to
replace whatever it was that we inhabited before.

President Obama himself dismissed complaints from people losing
their health coverage because of the Affordable Care Act with an
updated version of “gotta break a few eggs.” In Boston, he shrugged
and
said, “a lot of people thought they were buying coverage, and
it turned out not to be so good.” Since Americans were too stupid
to recognize that their health plans were “substandard,” it’s no
great loss that they were swept away. People should shut up and
shop for a new plan that complies with the law, he suggested,
whatever the
price or
access to care.

Ezra Klein of the Washington Post took a
similar for-your-own-good view of the Affordable Care Act’s
deceptions.

Health-care consultant Bob Laszewski buys insurance on the
individual market in Maryland. His plan’s benefits are excellent.
“I can access every provider in the national Blue Cross
network––about every doc and hospital in America––without a
referral and without higher deductibles and co-pays,” he
writes…

But his plan is ending. The replacements all have tighter
networks, higher deductibles, and higher premiums. And Laszewski
isn’t alone. Many Americans who currently buy insurance on the
individual markets are seeing their plans canceled and finding the
replacement plans have higher premiums or stingier benefits. For
them, President Obama’s promise that “if you like your plan, you
can keep it,” is proving a cruel hoax.

But that’s OK, you see, Klein says, because Laszewski’s
attractive insurance policy existed under the old rules, and had to
make way for the more inclusive, and expensive, new medical
order.

But all the possible solutions have tradeoffs. Laszewski’s
preference, he said in a recent interview, would’ve been for the
administration to grandfather in more existing insurance plans.
That would’ve meant higher insurance premiums in the exchanges, as
healthier people who’re able to buy into the individual market now
would’ve just stayed there. High-risk pools or any other kind of
direct, government-provided insurance or subsidy for the sick needs
to be paid for by someone.

There are no easy solutions to the health-care trilemma. Someone
always loses.

And it’s apparently the administration’s job to pick the losers
according to its policy preferences. Laszewski is too healthy and
successful to benefit from subsidies or mandates that he be sold
insurance. That makes him a loser. So screw you, Bob!

Matt Welch
pointed, last week to David Firestone similarly rolling his
eyes in the pages of the New York Times at people upset
over the federal government’s increasingly intrusive health
policies. “Republicans were apparently furious that government
would dare intrude on an insurance company’s freedom to offer a
terrible product to desperate people,” Firestone
wrote.

Yeah, such a “terrible product” that people are pissed that the
new law makes those products go away. But they don’t know better,
so the decision has to be made for them.

But perhaps the most open and honest endorsement of paternalism
you’ll see that doesn’t actually use the words, “all within the
state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state” is in
a column by
Timothy Noah at MSNBC in which he takes Charles Krauthammer to
task for daring to use the “p” word as a criticism:

What’s most striking here is Krauthammer’s overconfidence that
the word “paternalism” will be received as a crushing blow. In
truth it is neither exceptional nor disturbing for government to
place certain limits on individual choice, even when those choices
affect nobody else.

It is illegal to kill yourself, or to sell yourself into
slavery, or to sell your organs, or to practice prostitution. It is
illegal to take certain drugs, either recreationally (because
they’re addictive and/or potentially harmful) or as treatment for
disease (because their efficacy is not yet proven and/or the side
effects are unknown).  State laws place maximum limits on how
much interest to charge for a private loan. Polygamy is illegal in
all 50 states.  And if a state trooper catches you driving 90
m.p.h., you will be fined, even if yours was the only vehicle on
the highway.

There’s certainly room for argument about whether particular
paternalistic laws are just and humane. But any notion that
government paternalism in general is inherently illegitimate stands
well outside the mainstream of practical governance.

You’ll notice that almost all of the restrictions and bans that
Noah cites as examples of beneficial paternalism have been
specifically criticized by libertarians and other advocates of
personal freedom as government overreach—especially pernicious and
dangerous overreach in the case of drug prohibition. The one
exception would be selling yourself into slavery, which many
libertarians consider a
logical impossibility, since you can’t alienate your free will.
Maybe that ability will be available as a rider on the new exchange
plans.

Noah dispenses with that inconvenient philosophical hurdle to
his “we all dig paternalism” argument by simply dismissing
consistent objections to exactly that as “outside the mainstream of
practical governance.” Paternalism is nothing for which to
apologize, he tells us, loud and proud. It isn’t a matter of
whether we should all be pushed around by the state, but
only the specifics of the pushing. Nothing else rates
discussion.

So welcome to world of paternalism as explicit policy, in which
substituting the preferences of politicians for our own choices is
a moral good, and lying to us about the outcome of rules and laws
is just fine in the pursuit of a worthy goal.

And if you object? Well, “someone always loses” in the pursuit
of the greater good.

President Obama’s
famous promise that Americans would be able to keep health
plans they like, even after the passage of Obamacare, has proven to
be so much bullshit. Caught between immovable quotes and
irresistable reality, Barry and friends now double down, explaining
to us that, yes it was a lie, but the deception was for the greater
good, whether or not we individually have been shafted. Welcome to
a world of bare-faced paternalism, in which pundits and presidents
sigh in relief at finally treating us all as so many little pieces
in the snap-together Lego world they’re cobbling together to
replace whatever it was that we inhabited before.

President Obama himself dismissed complaints from people losing
their health coverage because of the Affordable Care Act with an
updated version of “gotta break a few eggs.” In Boston, he shrugged
and
said, “a lot of people thought they were buying coverage, and
it turned out not to be so good.” Since Americans were too stupid
to recognize that their health plans were “substandard,” it’s no
great loss that they were swept away. People should shut up and
shop for a new plan that complies with the law, he suggested,
whatever the
price or
access to care.

Ezra Klein of the Washington Post took a
similar for-your-own-good view of the Affordable Care Act’s
deceptions.

Health-care consultant Bob Laszewski buys insurance on the
individual market in Maryland. His plan’s benefits are excellent.
“I can access every provider in the national Blue Cross
network––about every doc and hospital in America––without a
referral and without higher deductibles and co-pays,” he
writes…

But his plan is ending. The replacements all have tighter
networks, higher deductibles, and higher premiums. And Laszewski
isn’t alone. Many Americans who currently buy insurance on the
individual markets are seeing their plans canceled and finding the
replacement plans have higher premiums or stingier benefits. For
them, President Obama’s promise that “if you like your plan, you
can keep it,” is proving a cruel hoax.

But that’s OK, you see, Klein says, because Laszewski’s
attractive insurance policy existed under the old rules, and had to
make way for the more inclusive, and expensive, new medical
order.

But all the possible solutions have tradeoffs. Laszewski’s
preference, he said in a recent interview, would’ve been for the
administration to grandfather in more existing insurance plans.
That would’ve meant higher insurance premiums in the exchanges, as
healthier people who’re able to buy into the individual market now
would’ve just stayed there. High-risk pools or any other kind of
direct, government-provided insurance or subsidy for the sick needs
to be paid for by someone.

There are no easy solutions to the health-care trilemma. Someone
always loses.

And it’s apparently the administration’s job to pick the losers
according to its policy preferences. Laszewski is too healthy and
successful to benefit from subsidies or mandates that he be sold
insurance. That makes him a loser. So screw you, Bob!

Matt Welch
pointed, last week to David Firestone similarly rolling his
eyes in the pages of the New York Times at people upset
over the federal government’s increasingly intrusive health
policies. “Republicans were apparently furious that government
would dare intrude on an insurance company’s freedom to offer a
terrible product to desperate people,” Firestone
wrote.

Yeah, such a “terrible product” that people are pissed that the
new law makes those products go away. But they don’t know better,
so the decision has to be made for them.

But perhaps the most open and honest endorsement of paternalism
you’ll see that doesn’t actually use the words, “all within the
state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state” is in
a column by
Timothy Noah at MSNBC in which he takes Charles Krauthammer to
task for daring to use the “p” word as a criticism:

What’s most striking here is Krauthammer’s overconfidence that
the word “paternalism” will be received as a crushing blow. In
truth it is neither exceptional nor disturbing for government to
place certain limits on individual choice, even when those choices
affect nobody else.

It is illegal to kill yourself, or to sell yourself into
slavery, or to sell your organs, or to practice prostitution. It is
illegal to take certain drugs, either recreationally (because
they’re addictive and/or potentially harmful) or as treatment for
disease (because their efficacy is not yet proven and/or the side
effects are unknown).  State laws place maximum limits on how
much interest to charge for a private loan. Polygamy is illegal in
all 50 states.  And if a state trooper catches you driving 90
m.p.h., you will be fined, even if yours was the only vehicle on
the highway.

There’s certainly room for argument about whether particular
paternalistic laws are just and humane. But any notion that
government paternalism in general is inherently illegitimate stands
well outside the mainstream of practical governance.

You’ll notice that almost all of the restrictions and bans that
Noah cites as examples of beneficial paternalism have been
specifically criticized by libertarians and other advocates of
personal freedom as government overreach—especially pernicious and
dangerous overreach in the case of drug prohibition. The one
exception would be selling yourself into slavery, which many
libertarians consider a
logical impossibility, since you can’t alienate your free will.
Maybe that ability will be available as a rider on the new exchange
plans.

Noah dispenses with that inconvenient philosophical hurdle to
his “we all dig paternalism” argument by simply dismissing
consistent objections to exactly that as “outside the mainstream of
practical governance.” Paternalism is nothing for which to
apologize, he tells us, loud and proud. It isn’t a matter of
whether we should all be pushed around by the state, but
only the specifics of the pushing. Nothing else rates
discussion.

So welcome to world of paternalism as explicit policy, in which
substituting the preferences of politicians for our own choices is
a moral good, and lying to us about the outcome of rules and laws
is just fine in the pursuit of a worthy goal.

And if you object? Well, “someone always loses” in the pursuit
of the greater good.

Sometimes reckless officer behavior that doesn’t kill someone
can be a sign, as
reported in the UK Daily Mail:

A driver has come forward saying the deputy who shot dead a
13-year-old California boy after mistaking his fake AK-47 as real
pulled a gun on him also, after he failed to signal a lane change
during a carpool. 

Jeff Westbrook, 57, of Santa Rosa said he was mistreated by
Deputy Erick Gelhaus after being pulled over Aug. 21 in Cotati, so
much so that at one point he asked Gelhaus: ‘Sir, is there
something wrong with you?’

‘I felt like I was watching somebody I needed to help,’ Mr
Westbrook, a program manager at an information technology company,
told CBS of Gelhaus.

‘This was not right. He did not manage this correctly.’

Gelhaus shot Andy Lopez seven times at a Santa Rosa parking
after recieving reports of a suspicious and believing his toy
machine gun was real.

Mr Westbrook was pulled over by Gelhaus for not using his
indicator.

He said he pulled into a shoulder, but offered to move the car
forward because there was not much room next to the driver door for
Gelhaus.

When the car started moving, Gelhaus is alleged to have drawn
his gun.

‘It was about a foot from by face,’ Westbrook said.

‘I’ve never had a gun pointed at me before.’

Reason on the shooting of Andy
Lopez.

British Prime
Minister David Cameron, who has promised to hold a referendum on
British membership of the European Union by the end of 2017 if the
Conservatives win a majority in the next general election, has said
that British support for E.U. membership is “wafer thin.”

From the
BBC:

British people’s support for staying in the European Union is
currently “wafer thin”, David Cameron has said.

The prime minister argued that his promise to renegotiate powers
with Brussels before holding an “in-out” referendum had the
“overwhelming support” of the public.

Follow this story and more at Reason
24/7.

Spice up your blog or Website with Reason 24/7 news and
Reason articles. You can get the widgets
here. If you have a story that would be of
interest to Reason’s readers please let us know by emailing the
24/7 crew at 24_7@reason.com, or tweet us stories
at @reason247.

British Prime
Minister David Cameron, who has promised to hold a referendum on
British membership of the European Union by the end of 2017 if the
Conservatives win a majority in the next general election, has said
that British support for E.U. membership is “wafer thin.”

From the
BBC:

British people’s support for staying in the European Union is
currently “wafer thin”, David Cameron has said.

The prime minister argued that his promise to renegotiate powers
with Brussels before holding an “in-out” referendum had the
“overwhelming support” of the public.

Follow this story and more at Reason
24/7.

Spice up your blog or Website with Reason 24/7 news and
Reason articles. You can get the widgets
here. If you have a story that would be of
interest to Reason’s readers please let us know by emailing the
24/7 crew at 24_7@reason.com, or tweet us stories
at @reason247.