I don’t call him my boyfriend. He’s more a good spirit friend who happens to be from the octopus race. – Stephany Fay Cohen
Sometimes it becomes obvious early in the week who’s going to be the lead contributor, but other times it’s close up until posting time. And once in a while I have actually collected the leader’s links at the top of the draft, only to have him fall behind in the end. That’s what happened this week; Jesse Walker only surpassed Radley Balko on Friday afternoon, and then by only one link. All of the links down to the first video are Jesse’s, as is the last part of “welcome to our world”; the first two parts were contributed by Marginal Utilite and Mike Siegel respectively, and the first three links after it are Radley’s. Both videos were supplied by Grace; the first one features her kind of guy (her own inventions aren’t quite that Goldbergian), and the second is a primer on a Supreme Court case I’ve mentioned before. “Warrant” and “judicial overreach” were provided by Gideon’s Trumpet, “unnecessary quotes” by Popehat, “new teeth” by Luscious Lani, “penis thieves” by Michael Whiteacre and “errant shooting” by Aspasia. This week we’ve also got an unusually-high number of articles by link contributors, as the bylines will show.
- Mars peopled by one vast thinking vegetable.
- Pushing back against “zero judgment” policies.
- Woman says her alien lovers are better at sex than any Earthling.
- Welcome to our world, drug users, gay people & domestic abuse victims.
- Cops shoot robbery victim eleven times, then arrest him to cover it up.
- 38 funny local television news captions.
- An encouraging development.
- “Where’s that warrant now?”
- I would call this judicial overreach.
- The “blog” of “unnecessary” quotation marks.
- The newest criminalization cash cow: school truancy.
- In the future, it may be possible to induce growth of new teeth.
- Publisher says free speech is bad because he’s afraid of zombies.
- US Air Force shoves drone attack statistics down the memory hole.
- Arizona tried to execute a crime victim on the word of a known liar.
- Mike Siegel dismembers absurd claim that only misogynists like big tits.
- Those who think the US isn’t yet a police state really need to read this.
- West Africans panic over thieves stealing men’s penises via black magic.
- Prosecutors charge man with first-degree murder for allowing his adult wife to voluntarily consume a nontoxic substance.
- If I went on a rampage, firing wildly into random vehicles, somehow I doubt it would be referred to in the media as an “errant shooting”.
From the Archives
- An interview with Stanley Siegel, whose Psychology Today sex blog was cancelled for being about sex.
- In every kind of bondage, government creates the legal climate that allows oppression to flourish.
- The absurd results of following premises of “consensual crime” laws to their logical conclusions.
- A cautionary tale about the dangers of believing in governmental power to alter reality.
- One of the larger prohibitionist groups of the first “sex trafficking” panic.
- Feminists are starting to realize that neofeminist policies hurt feminism.
- The tale of a parallel Maggie in the world envisioned by Ray Bradbury.
- The cause of sex worker rights could use a little help from our friends.
- Another good, clean charity refuses money from nasty, dirty whores.
- In which I actually agree with a prohibitionist district attorney.
- In the UK, being a cop confers expertise in oncology research.
- The bizarre looking-glass world of sex work prohibitionists.
- In Mumbai, there is a bank which serves only sex workers.
- In California, crime is whatever school officials say it is.
- The underage whore who became a fashion designer.
- Michael Weinstein opposes HIV prevention measures.
- A two-part Q & A session with activist Jill Brenneman.
- Just how old is the “world’s oldest profession”?
- Reviews of four movies with hooker heroines.
- Tyrants find neofeminists to be useful idiots.
- How Switzerland deals with streetwalkers.
- PayPal backtracks on a censorship policy.
- Man dies while visiting his sugar baby.
- Iranian women’s topless protest.
- The Healing Power of Sex Work.
- Another Canadian serial killer?
- Man’s inhumanity to whores.
- A few things I did last March.
I apologize in advance if this sounds rude or too completely cynical:
So the US is now a police state. Fine, I won’t argue that, though I’d wager many people are simply trying to get through the next day without pissing off the wrong people. What I’d like to see is someone explain how that is reversed without turning the country into a bloodbath on the scale of a second U.S. Civil War or French Revolution. Does anyone here think such an avoidance is even possible?
Since if not, I highly doubt a mob with torches and pitchforks is going to end up directing their ire toward the right targets.
Oh that’s exactly how it will happen – and I think within our lifetimes. The government is out of money – we’re coasting now on people’s disbelief of the problem – that ends soon.
As a government worker – next month I will take a 20 percent cut in my pay for five months. Now, I’m okay with that – I think we should spend less money and come to grips with the fact that the government can’t do everything. However, I’m a little pissed that Planned Parenthood won’t be taking a pay cut. National Public Radio won’t be taking a pay cut. Egypt – will NOT be taking a pay cut. However, I hazard my LIFE for this country in my current job and yeah – I get cut.
This is only the beginning. Once the real cuts come – the pols will then dish out what little they have left to their key power constituencies. They’ll attempt to protect the corporations and unions first – since this where they get most of their money to remain in power – everyone else will be left out in the cold … and very much kind of pissed off about it.
Eventually this feeling will result in another American Revolution.
Fine, I’ll take it on.
First, the American public seriously needs to get over it’s cop worship. If you’re so turned on to the idea of being abused by someone with a boot on your neck, then you need to see a dominatrix, not call for more cops.
Secondly, the American public needs to realize that the major job of cops is not protecting them from violence. That’s incidental. Their real job is right there, in the name, “Law Enforcement”. Their job is to use force to make you do anything the government wants you to do. That is the job. They might catch murders and robbers because murder, and robbery are against the law.
The entire structure of policing needs to be trashed, It doesn’t work. How does one do this?
If we Americans did the above, we’d stop always accepting cop’s word. We get cynical about them and their motives. If we had any taste for liberty, we’d refuse to believe that a new law is the response to every problem.
We could begin holding the cops to the law. We could begin advocating at every level to cut law enforcement budgets, to hire less cops, and to deal with problems without the ‘help” of the bully boys. This needn’t always involve violence. The cops often bring the violence.
Secondly, we could push en masse for a law that said that any law enforcement officer or court official found guilty of convicting a citizen by lying, fraud, hiding evidence must finish the convicted’s sentence, including the death penalty.
If cops claim to be professionals, hold them to it. Force them to carry mal practice insurance, like other professionals, and make them capable of being personally sued.
Gradually replace the cops with a “town watchman” type structure, people hired by the citizens to provide the sort of presence that prevents overt crime. Write the laws so that these individual have a very limited, and codified way of dealing with citizens, and if they exceed that, punish them harshly. Limit the situations in which they were allowed to intervene, and how. Documentation, as in video, or multiple witness of undue violence, racial slurs, or rude behaviour towards the citizens would result in immediate sacking, just as it would for any other service employee.
Get rid of laws making consensual adult behavior illegal. That would solve a lot of the problems.
We need to also change our society to be not nearly so draconian, unforgiving, and dog eat dog. We need to address poverty by ensuring opportunities exist for all. We need to address the vast income inequalities. Overall, we need to make this a less harsh, less unfair, less capitalistic society.
I realize this is a tall order. The big capitalists will oppose it. The government would certainly oppose it, as they want the line of bully thugs enforcing their authority with guns and clubs. But democracy and a police state cannot co-exist.
Remember: “People should not fear their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.” =- V
Links. I’ll get to it after I catch up on the others. Looking forward to it, as a lot of the links Maggie posts are interesting (I remember the ancient Egyptian d20).