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Posts Tagged ‘Prohibition (alcohol)’

A Boot is a Boot

Posted in History, Philosophy, Tyranny, Words, tagged , , , , , , , on December 1, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one’s government is not necessarily to secure freedom. – Friedrich Hayek

Once again, for those who insist on being willfully obtuse: “authoritarianism” is not the opposite of “democracy”.  The former refers to a governing philosophy; the latter to a method of choosing those who will implement the governing philosophy.  Democratic elections can, and regularly do, produce authoritarian governments; if a “democratic majority” uses violence to impose its will on a peaceful minority, then the government produced by such a “democracy” is an authoritarian one.  The US has been an authoritarian republic (with largely, though not wholly, democratic mechanics) since the founding; though many white Americans refuse to recognize this, Black Americans and American Indians usually understand.  Furthermore, the US has become more authoritarian over time, such as when the elected majoritarian government decided it had the right to inflict violence on people for merely possessing certain substances, or for thinking certain thoughts while agreeing to have sex, or for crossing imaginary lines on a map.  A boot is a boot, regardless of who chose the style.  Or as I wrote once before:

When faced with a mob who wants to trample me, I don’t much care whether the leader of that mob was chosen by popularity contest or drawing lots, advanced bureaucratically, inherited the position from his dad or mom, or claims to have been appointed by the gods.  I don’t care whether the members of that mob stomp first with their left boots or their right, or whether they employ ushers to ensure I’m trampled “equally”.  I don’t care whether the majority of mob members are male, female, androgynous or sexless, nor do I give a damn about the relative darkness of their skins, what language they speak, or whose body parts they prefer to fondle or have jammed into their faces.  Neither do I care about their supposed “reasons” for trampling me, nor whether they claim my trampling was “proper” or “fair” or “according to procedure”, nor whether some person they define as being like me in some way (important to them but not to me) was part of the mob.  I just want the fucking mob to leave me the fuck alone.

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Ghost of Fridaystein

Posted in History, Miscellaneous, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 7, 2025| Leave a Comment »

The act of agreeing to serve as a policeman in any regime is at best an amoral one, because in doing so the individual agrees to enforce (by violence if necessary) all of the laws passed by his government, whether he agrees with them or not; he abdicates his personal morality to those in authority and allows his actions to be dictated by others, even if he knows those actions to be wrong.  –  “Godwin’s Law”

The most dangerous prohibitionists…are those who oppose no particular behavior or thing, but rather the very freedom of choice itself.  –  “Thou Shalt Not”

Despite what the anti-sex crowd likes to pretend, sexuality is not a mere “choice”, something dropped on top of a person’s personality at the last minute like pickles on a cheeseburger; it is a deep and intrinsic part of the human psyche, rooted in the hindbrain and woven throughout the psychic fabric.  –  “The Twig is Bent”

If intelligence is rare, advanced spacefaring civilizations might consider all of it valuable, and could conceivably think of any intelligent species confined to a single habitat as “endangered”.  –  “Endangered Species“

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Throwback Wednesday

Posted in History, Miscellaneous, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, Words, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on December 4, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Like any attractive woman who dares to be sexual, Barbie has inflamed the passions of losers everywhere.  –  “Barbie”

Though some religious leaders claim that it’s a “basic fact of the moral universe” that businesses should be held responsible for criminals wrongfully using their services, they certainly don’t support holding churches or church programs responsible for exactly the same thing.  –
“Where Are the Protests?”

When the pejorative “sad” is applied to people who prefer computer games to drinking it is usually understood to be wholly subjective and irrational, but when applied to sex work it somehow becomes a valid argument for criminalization.  –  “Conflation Creates Criminality”

To prohibitionists, human rights, happiness and even life are subsidiary to “sending a message”, and the cost of that message can never be too great.  –  “Ignoble Experiment”

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Throwback Tuesday

Posted in Miscellaneous, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 26, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Making wildly exaggerated  Criswell-like predictions of the number of hookers who will descend upon a major sporting event has become a popular pastime of prohibitionists.  –
“Hidden Hordes of Hookers”

In a particularly absurd touch, the “free soap” is labeled with the phone number of the National Human Trafficking Hotline, undoubtedly so that motel guests can call from their waterproof cell phones if “human traffickers” pass through their bathrooms while they’re showering.  –  “It’s That Time Again”

Government repeatedly grants to even its most minor actors immunity from the edicts by which it establishes universal criminality for the rest of us.  –  “Shame, Shame”

Th[e] insane “progressive” social engineering scheme to “improve” the human race by giving governments control over everything individuals might choose to ingest…[was] from the beginning…deeply tied to eugenics and other racist pseudoscience.  –  “Winding Down“

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In the News (#1256)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 23, 2022| 1 Comment »

It has become increasingly difficult for the public to move, assemble, and converse in public without being tracked and recorded.  –  Ed Markey

Where Are the Protests? 

I’m sure the “anti-trafficking” crusaders will be going after this any day now:

From industrial-scale scam centers in Southeast Asia, criminal syndicates have spent the pandemic perfecting an intricate romance-meets-investment fraud called Shāzhūpán (pig butchering scams).  Teams of scammers use sophisticated scripts to “fatten up” their targets, grooming individuals…and enticing them into investment schemes increasingly centered on cryptocurrency, before going in for the “slaughter” and stealing their money…the scale of human suffering sustaining pig butchering is unprecedented in the world of online scamming.  Propping up the industry are thousands of people trapped in a cycle of human trafficking, debt, forced labor, and violence; people from across the region lured by fake job adverts to scam centers in Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia…the structures underpinning pig butchering…[are] creating a “humanitarian crisis”…[for both] individuals robbed of their life savings and plunged into debt, as well as those on the other side of the screen, imprisoned victims forced to groom others and scam…

If Men Were Angels

This “youth pastor” had an assistant:

A former pastor and his wife [named]…Raymond…and…Sandra Swash, face several historical sexual assault charges involving minors as young as 13 years old when they were members of the Banfield Memorial Church in North York, [Ontario]…Raymond was a youth pastor and youth leader at the church in the late 80s and early 90s…[and] a woman told…police she had repeatedly been sexually assaulted by both suspects when she was 13 years old in 1987, until she was 17 years old in 1990…Another…woman alleged she had been sexually assaulted by Raymond Swash when she was 13 and 14, from 1992 to 1993.  Investigators…believe there may be more victims…

Panopticon (#914)

San Francisco pigs are no longer satisfied with waiting for useful idiots’ consent:

Three years after San Francisco passed a law requiring city departments to get approval for their use of surveillance technology…the SFPD [wants warrantless]…live surveillance when a misdemeanor or a vaguely defined “significant event” is in progress…[via] tap[ping] into private cameras…Under the new policy, the SFPD could live-monitor private cameras across the city, including residents’ Ring doorbell cameras, or those operated by private organizations or businesses…

A Moral Cancer (#1072)

Crypto-moralists always pretend their lust to ban things is about “health” or “safety”:

Alcohol carries significant health risks and no benefits for young people but some older adults may gain from drinking a small amount, according to…the authors of the Global Burden of Diseases study, a rolling project based at the University of Washington in Seattle…Four years ago the study said that even the occasional drink was harmful to health, and suggested governments should advise people to abstain entirely.  But after [they weren’t publicly humiliated enough for suggesting] a major new [theater in the] global [War on Drugs], the [puritans] behind the study have [been emboldened to make even more ridiculous statements]…

Panopticon (#1089)

No evidence will stop those more concerned about a few burglars than a massive police state:

The Amazon company…confirm[ed] that there have [already] been 11 cases in 2022 where Ring complied with police “emergency” requests…[and] handed over private recordings, including video and audio, without letting users know that police had access to—and potentially downloaded—their data.  This raises many concerns about increased police reliance on private surveillance, a practice that’s long gone unregulated…

Whither Canada? (#1133)

I’m skeptical this will accomplish anything, but it probably can’t hurt:

A sex worker in Nova Scotia is pursuing a claim for non-payment of services in small claims court, in a case she and her advocates hope will help shift the conversation about sex work in Canada…[whose version of the odious Swedish model] prevents sex workers from being able to easily create contracts for their services, as one cannot typically establish a contract in which one party is required to do something illegal…Jessica Rose, a staff lawyer for the Elizabeth Fry Society…who is representing [the sex worker, said]…”Without being able to easily contract for their services…[sex workers a]re really at a disadvantage in terms of getting paid the money that they are owed by their clients…it might be that we could argue that this kind of an illegal contract is still one that should be enforced, and that is what we will be arguing”…

Thought Control (#1253)

I never would’ve thought my first profession would become as much a target for authoritarians as my second:

Residents of a small Iowa town [persecut]ed their library’s LGBTQ staff and their displaying of LGBTQ-related books until most of the staff quit.  Now, the town’s library is closed for the foreseeable future.  After having the same library director for 32 years, the Vinton Public Library can’t seem to keep the position filled anymore…[in the last year] the…library has gone through two permanent directors and an interim director who has served in that role twice…the…issues s[tarted when]…a handful of locals whipped up a controversy first over the library displaying books about prominent Democrats, and later about it displaying LGBTQ books and [not illegally discriminating against] LGBTQ people…[in hiring.  The] attacks…[are] part of a nationwide trend sparked by [wannabe censors equating LGBT materials]…with pedophilia…Iowa has been no exception and public and school libraries have both in these crosshairs…

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Leaving the 20th Century

Posted in Current Events, History, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 7, 2022| 2 Comments »

One of the titles by which the 20th Century will no doubt be known to future historians is “the Prohibition Era”.  The concept of Prohibition first started to take root in the diseased brains of control freaks in the late 19th century; it was an outgrowth of the broader “Progressive” philosophy which held that ordinary people cannot be trusted with our own lives, and must therefore be ruled by “experts” who decide for everyone how the human race should be “improved”, and enforce their diktats with violent thug armies whose actions cannot easily be reconciled with the concept of civil rights.  The first prohibitionist laws date to the late 19th century, but it was in the 20th that the concept not only reached full flower, but also successfully penetrated the minds of the general public so thoroughly that most took it for granted that for governments to tell people what they could consume, what they could own, and even what thoughts they could have while agreeing to consensual sex, was not only normal, but desirable.  Full alcohol prohibition lasted barely over a decade, but it left in its wake a patchwork of local prohibitions which have only very gradually eroded (and in some ways worsened again toward the end of the century).  And the failure of this one form of prohibition to thrive probably has a great deal to do with the fact that virtually no other country was willing to follow the American example; in most other cases, prohibitions which started in the US (such as drugs and prostitution) spread like a plague over the rest of the world.

But as the 20th century recedes into the past and the number of adults who can’t even remember it grows with every passing year, what Josephine Butler called “the fatuous belief that you can oblige human beings to be moral by force” has gradually become less popular.  The once-global “War on Drugs” is beginning to wind down, and the full or partial criminalization of sex work is increasingly recognized as an abomination by those with healthy minds and respect for human rights.  New South Wales decriminalized “prostitution” in 1995, followed by New Zealand in 2003; many other countries at least loosened their laws on the subject around that same time.  Unfortunately, the prohibitionists recognized the trend before it could snowball, and began a propaganda campaign to convince the world that adult women are universally too weak-minded and spineless to be allowed to run our own sexual affairs, and that phenomena which had previously always been recognized as the pragmatic sexual decisions of individual women were in reality the result of the machinations of a vast cabal of “sex traffickers” abducting hundreds of thousands of “children” into literal slavery.  But moral panics have a very limited lifespan, and this one is already long past its heyday of the early ’10s.  It is now in the process of imploding in a rather spectacular fashion, and opposition to the continued criminalization of sex work has become a safe position even for US politicians.  The temporarily-delayed process of decriminalization got rolling again over the past few years; Australia’s Northern Territory decriminalized near the end of 2019, and Victoria state followed suit just a few weeks ago.  And now the first country outside of Oceania is set to join them:

The official green light has been given to Federal Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne’s proposal to reform Belgium’s sexual criminal law…[by] remov[ing] sex work from the penal code…The Federal Parliament still has to approve the proposal but that is not expected to be more than a formality.  “This is a crucial leap forward. We are finally giving sex workers what they are entitled to: recognition and protection. Something they have been asking for decades,” Van Quickenborne said…Under current regulation, sex work is allowed, but third parties involved with sex workers are committing a crime.  The law [cl]aims to target pimps but in practice impacts other people…from book-keepers and web designers to drivers, landlords and even banks…

The importance of this move is difficult to overstate; the “sex trafficking” myth has provided a convenient cloak for Europen racism, and European chauvinism made decriminalization easy to ignore as long as it was strictly a “Down Under” practice (the same chauvinism has given the toxic “Swedish model” undeserved credibility).  But if Belgium follows through, Europe can no longer dismiss recognition of the sexual rights of adult women as a provincial abberation, and it’s entirely possible others may follow its example.

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In the News (#1160)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 7, 2021| 1 Comment »

Any time [cops use] an AI system…[to] affect an outcome for a human, it’s probably harmful.  –  Tristan Greene

First They Came for the Hookers…

The only thing unusual here is that the molester cop actually got in trouble:

The resignations of two top officials and a [lying, deceitful cop] at the Arizona Department of Liquor Licenses and Control this year are linked to a bungled undercover operation at Scottsdale’s Skin Cabaret, in which the [cop molested a dancer]…Director John Cocca and Deputy Director Mike Rosenberger resigned in April with no public explanation…[after pig] Mike Sanchez…[groped] her genitals during a…[strip club visit conducted using the pretext of]…COVID-19 health and liquor violations…in a VIP room…Sanchez…claimed [molesting the woman wasn’t a crime because] he “was never at any time sexually motivated” [when he groped her]…

Apparently, cops believe molestation and rape are OK as long as they pretend that they were thinking about ruining lives rather than getting off.

The Lesser of Two Evils (#414)

Principled Christians understand that prohibition is evil:

For years, my faith system told me that all forms of sex work were immoral and should be a crime, and the only way to eliminate the sale of sex…is [for the state] to impose heavy consequences that discourage the behavior.  Most people I know share similar beliefs…[but] the more I learn, the further I move away from this popular opinion…my prayers, my research and simply listening to those who trade sex, revealed that the greatest problem was the unnecessary burden society was placing on this community by criminalizing consensual sex work…criminalization has failed…to eliminate or even reduce the sex trade, nor has it improved the moral fabric of society.  If criminalization is not accomplishing any of these, then why does this remain our approach?…We eventually reversed [alcohol] Prohibition, so we should now be asking ourselves “why haven’t we reversed other laws like it, including those against consensual sex”?…

Disaster (#1000)

It’s so nice to hear this from someone whose name isn’t Maggie McNeill:

…if you’re talking about FOSTA/SESTA…someone, at some point, will [claim] that it was aimed at combatting sex trafficking [and] had unintended impacts on…sex work[ers]…there’s a law review article…called “good intentions and unintended consequences”…a…2018 OC Register article called “The Unintended Consequences of a Well Meaning Anti-Sex-Trafficking Law”…and [multiple examples of political bloviation]…But…the narrative of “unintended consequences” is utter nonsense.  Negative effects on sex workers (and there were many) were not “unintended.”  The text of the law explicitly criminalizes the promotion of prostitution and it’s hard to argue that an interpretation of the law that was clear from its text is unintended…this narrative is [even] contradicted by what the organizations that supported FOSTA say about their own goals…

Guinea Pigs (#1079)

Just a reminder that this privacy-destroying abomination started as a means of spying on sex workers:

Hundreds of thousands of [cops] in the US have the authority to use blackbox AI to conduct unethical surveillance, generate evidence, and circumvent our Fourth Amendment protections.  And there’s little reason to believe anyone’s going to do anything about it…[because these] systems are a goldmine for startups, big tech, and politicians…Any cop, regardless of affiliation or status, has access to dozens (if not hundreds) of third-party AI systems…he…can…install…Clearview AI on [a] personal smartphone…take a picture of anyone and [find] their identity…then runs th[at]…through an app from a company such as Palantir…without a warrant, officer Friendly now has access to your phone carrier, ISP, and email records…medical and mental health records, military service history, court records, legal records, travel history, and…property records…[with] absolutely no oversight whatsoever…Predictive-policing is among the most common [of these] unethical AI systems…The[y]…claim to use “data” to determine where crimes are going to happen.  But…all [they] can [actually] do is determine, historically, where police tend to arrest the most people…

One small nitpick: hey headline writer, Pandora wasn’t in the box; she was the one who opened it.

To Molest and Rape (#1090)

“Police explorer” programs are nothing but grooming schemes for predatory cops:

Two NYPD cops [raped] a vulnerable teen [victim via] the police youth program, taking advantage of the underage girl to “satisfy their depraved interests,” an internal department judge has ruled….[after] Sanad Musallam and Yaser Shohatee [enjoyed a paid vacation for four years [after getting caught in]…2016…the case f[ell] apart [because] the [15-year-old victim was too afraid of her rapists]…to continue to cooperate with investigators…

The Next Target (#1127)

It was only a matter of time before “sex trafficking” fetishists extended their pet fantasy to OnlyFans:

…”[OnlyFans] is just one more avenue that traffickers can use to make money,” [bloviated a Texas cop named]…Joseph Scaramucci…[who] has spent more than a decade [masturb]ating [to fantasies of] sex trafficking…in recent months, much of his [wanking material has come from]…OnlyFans… “there was [sic] very obvious signs of people that were under 3rd party control, “Scaramucci [fantasized while making furtive movements in his pants]…He has [jerked off to] many pornographic images that [were] consensual, but…he…[fantasizes] that the females in…the pictures may be victims that have been coerced by sex traffickers…[especially] teenagers…

The Next Target (#1130)

Prohibitionists’ next target isn’t just porn; it’s all online sex work:

“Sugar dating” apps will not be allowed on the Android Play Store from September 1st, Google has announced…Google’s Play Store policies already prohibit apps that promote “services that may be interpreted as providing sexual acts in exchange for compensation.”  But the updated wording expands this definition to explicitly include “compensated dating or sexual arrangements where one participant is expected or implied to provide money, gifts or financial support to another participant (‘sugar dating’)”…

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What They Are

Posted in History, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, Words, tagged , , , , on January 29, 2021| 6 Comments »

Anti-sex, pro-censorship gangs want to be called “abolitionist” because it lets them pretend their racist schemes are a continuation of the 19th-century campaign against chattel slavery.  But in actuality, they are a continuation of the 19th-century campaign to harass, spy upon, inflict state violence upon, and generally destroy the lives of people who did things the prohibitionists (whose movement was rooted in US evangelical Protestantism) disapproved of, such as alcohol, extramarital sex of any kind (including masturbation, homosexuality, and sexual imagery), abortion, interracial fraternization, etc, etc.  Only the most deranged of this warped cult of busybodies actually believe they can “abolish” human nature; what most of them really want is a permanent government-backed war on human nature, AKA Prohibition.  Prohibitionists not only live in a fantasy world, but demand that the rest of us live in it with them.  And they want the state to restrict the liberties of those they fantasize about, and enact violence on those who refuse to pretend their fantasies are real.  Supporters of Prohibition are properly called Prohibitionists, not “abolitionists”.  Words mean things; call prohibitionists what they are, not what they pretend to be.

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Winding Down

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on November 23, 2020| 6 Comments »

At long last, the ruinous, decades-long War on Drugs is starting to wind down.  This insane “progressive” social engineering scheme to “improve” the human race by giving governments control over everything individuals might choose to ingest started in the United States, and from the beginning was deeply tied to eugenics and other racist pseudoscience.  But though its twin sister eugenics fell into disgrace due to certain goose-stepping Europeans using it as an excuse for genocide, prohibition thrived and was eventually imposed via treaties and bullying on every corner of the globe.  The carnage inflicted by the evil dogma that consensual behavior can be “illegal” is incalculable, and while politicians are still attached to it like embedded ticks, backlash against the drug theater of the greater World War on Human Rights has been brewing for some time, and many of them have come to realize that their countries can simply no longer afford its devastating costs in both money and lives.  The madness’ native land was the first to begin rejecting it; cannabis is still fully criminalized in only six US states, and momentum is building to legalize or decriminalize other drugs as well.  The plant is also legal in Canada and Uruguay, and both Mexico and Israel appear poised to follow suit; before much longer it is likely the the drug war treaties will collapse, and criminalization (especially of psychedelics) will become the exception rather than the rule.  Alas, this does not mean the end of prohibition as a concept; it is too useful an excuse for police-statery for power-mad sociopaths to give up, so while drug prohibition is losing popularity, many other kinds of prohibition, from guns to plastic drinking straws, are gaining in popularity.  And chief among these is the War on Whores, which as I pointed out long ago is the new War on Drugs; it is no accident that even as support for the criminalization of plants was dying in the US, propaganda justifying police violence against people interested in consensual sex was increasing.  Canada’s legalization of cannabis was separated by only a short span from its imposition of Swedish-style criminalization, and the exact same thing can be said of Israel (except that the gap was even shorter).  The winding down of one front in the great war on liberty is indeed something to celebrate, but only if those who have been fighting against this one form of prohibition recognize that we still have a very, very long way to go.

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In the News (#1029)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 11, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Governmental mechanisms to frame policy based on lies are not uncommon.  –  Laura Agustín

The Naked Anthropologist

Dr. Laura Agustín on “sex trafficking” snake oil:

Swindle, chicanery, skullduggery, con.  There’s no one perfect word to describe how trafficking came to be hailed as one of the great problems of our time.  Excess in rhetoric has known no bounds, with campaigners saying theirs is the new civil-rights movement and claiming there are more people in slavery today than at any time in human history, amongst other hyperbole.  And there was me thinking it was about folks wanting to leave home to see if things might be better elsewhere…I was asking reasonable questions about a social phenomenon and refused to be fobbed off with explanations that made no sense.  My trajectory as a thinker happened to coincide with a piece of governmental legerdemain that switched the topic of conversation from human mobility and migration to organized crime, like peas in a shell game…

Shame, Shame (#649)

Gee, who could’ve anticipated draconian “revenge porn” laws would be used this way (except all the free speech activists who have opposed them for years)?

Bethany Austin did nothing society would reasonably call wrong.  She received, without asking, sexually explicit images that her fiancé’s paramour sent to a shared cloud account.  She quietly called off the engagement…[and] her former fiancé [responded by] spread[ing] a hurtful and untrue rumor that he had ended the relationship because Ms. Austin was crazy and refused to cook and clean for him.  To clear her good name, Ms. Austin wrote a letter to her friends and family explaining what really happened.  She attached some of the images as proof.  Now the ex‐​fiancé and his paramour are using Illinois’s “revenge porn” law to punish her for speaking, and the state is happily obliging…The trial court found the law unconstitutional, but the Illinois Supreme Court reversed.  Cato, joined by DKT Liberty Project, has filed an amicus brief supporting Ms. Austin’s petition to the U.S. Supreme Court…

I Spy (#1001)

When it comes to mass surveillance, fascism beats communism hands down:

Google will use its mammoth collection of mobile location data to [spy on] people across the globe [to see whether they are obeying] government [orders] to remain at home [until politicians deign to let them out again]…or are venturing out to [live their lives]…Google will provide county-level percentages that are updated every few days, but summarized in a way that the company [claims] will not reveal any individual’s travels [until politicians demand such information…

A Moral Cancer (#1002)

Crypto-moralists always pretend their lust to ban things is about “health” or “safety”:

With the economy tanking and families locked together because of stay-at-home orders…domestic violence rates appear to be soaring.  This requires an urgent response:  States should immediately order the closures of liquor stores.  They can reopen when [politicians declare that] home isolation is no longer needed…

Like Houses (#1025)

And guess who gets to declare that an “emergency” exists?

California Gov. Gavin Newsom thinks that [the] right [to self-defense]…is…”nonessential”…a…decision…which allowed Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva to unilaterally ban the sale of firearms and ammunition…Villanueva…[was forced to] rescind…his ban…[in the face of a lawsuit and]…new federal guidelines.  New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy…[and] Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf [made similar defeated attempts]…their reluctance to respect [Constitutional rights does]…not bode well for civil liberties at a time when many people seem to think that fighting the pandemic trumps all other concerns…Cornell law professor Michael Dorf argued…Congress should suspend the writ of habeas corpus…[so] people [can be indefinitely] detained by the government…[and a recent poll showed] sizable majorities of [useful idiots]…favored confining people to their homes, [caging] sick people…government takeovers of businesses, [enslavement] of health care workers…and even criminalizing [speech that the government disapproves of]…

Like Houses (#1027)

Oh Maggie, you’re paranoid; this is about keeping people SAFE!

Under a motion passed by the city council in Laredo, Texas…residents…face a fine of up to $1,000 for not wearing some form of covering on their nose and mouth [until politicians declare] the coronavirus outbreak [over]…all residents over the age of 5 are required to have their nose and mouth covered when entering public buildings, using public transportation and when pumping gas…residents will also be required to adhere to a daily curfew or possibly face a fine or jail time…the curfew…lasts from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m…and may only leave for…work…[if they have a permission slip] from their employer…

It’s not about expanding the police state at all!

…New York [cops] arrested three people in Brooklyn…after they allegedly “failed to maintain social distancing”…despite [politicians] promising that those disregarding the lockdown would face fines at most…the individuals [were]…charged with obstructing governmental administration, unlawful assembly, and disorderly conduct…one…woman…[was mobbed by pigs] wearing no masks…[who] pepper-sprayed [her and her boyfriend]…she…was…then [locked in a filthy cage]…with two dozen other women for the next 36 hours.  Only women who already had masks when they were arrested were allowed to keep them…The woman was…[fired] because [her employer]…fears she was exposed to the virus while in [the disgusting, unsanitary cage]…

Government officials can be trusted not to take it too far!

Louisville residents [accused of]…contact with coronavirus patients [whom cops also accuse of] refus[ing] to isolate themselves are being [forced] to wear ankle [monitor] bracelets…there are [four] known cases so far…

Social Distancing (#1028)

American anti-sex work attitudes have slowly caught on in Japan:

Advocates for bar hostesses and [other] sex workers have urged the government to reconsider its exclusion of them from compensation for parents unable to work because of school closures, noting they are among the most vulnerable members of society.  A support group for such workers submitted…a letter asking the government not to discriminate by occupation and to protect the lives of all families as the coronavirus takes its toll on the Japanese economy…

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