I hasten to equate Google with the government for boiling frog analogies just yet  But given its dominance in the online world, word that Google has banned ads critical of MoveOn.org is troubling.  Google says the ads, which were placed by the campaign of Maine Senator Susan Collins, violate Google’s trademark policy.

Robert Cox of The Examiner isn’t buying it.  In a commentary piece earlier today, Mr. Cox cited Ronald Coleman, an intellectual property lawyer, in criticizing Google’s decision:

(A)s a private company, Google has the right to treat different advertisers differently.

But he called Google’s removal of the Collins ads “troubling.” Coleman says that there is no such requirement under trademark law and that Google appears to be selectively enforcing its policy.

“In a recent ruling, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the notion that there is anything like a cause of action under the Lanham Act, the statue governing trademark law in the United States, for so-called ‘trademark disparagement,’ ” Coleman said. The courts have also rejected the notion that the use of a trademark as a search term is a “legally cognizable use” as a trademark use under federal trademark law, he added. Coleman is also general counsel for the Media Bloggers Association.

Google routinely permits the unauthorized use of company names such as Exxon, Wal-Mart, Cargill and Microsoft in advocacy ads. An anti-war ad currently running on Google asks “Keep Blackwater in Iraq?” and links to an article titled “Bastards at Blackwater — Should Blackwater Security be held accountable for the deaths of its employees?”

Again, I’m not willing to cite this as an example of the frog boiling.  For all its ubiquity, Google is still a private company and, as such, has the right to discriminate against and in favor of whoever it wants.  Still, the boiling ought to know that, in the political arena, Google is siding with the boilers.

We spend most of our time focusing on bureaucrats, politicians and regulators who turn the heat up on the American people’s freedoms. But there are folks doing their part to turn the heat down, too. Latest to come to our attention courtesy of Chris Krafcik over at i-Gaming News — the Interactive Media Entertainment & Gaming Association, a DC-based trade association founded to “promote innovation, openness and freedom” on the Internet. iMega is challenging the new Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act on constitutional grounds, with the most compelling argument for fans of The Frog being that the new law violates the right to privacy.

Now I’m no great believer that the U.S. Constitution actually contains a right to privacy, but the United States Supreme Court thinks otherwise, and it’s the Court’s word that matters. The argument, as I understand it: if the Constitution protects a person’s right to engage in consensual sodomy in the privacy of his own home, it must also protect his right to gamble online in his own home.

I blogged on this subject over at my blog on Betcha.com, and I don’t have much else to add here. I’ll say this, though: if iMega prevails on the merits, lovers of liberty everywhere will be forever indebted.

Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is denying that he and his staff are investigating Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Mark Levin for alleged violations of God knows what. The denial comes in reaction to Rush Limbaugh’s extensive on-air discussions of Waxman’s reported investigation, in which Rush alleges that Waxman’s staff monitors his show daily (at taxpayer expense) for untoward comments.

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m not buying Waxman’s denial. When a powerful politician is accused of, in essence, using his staff to spy on private American citizens, at taxpayer expense, I would expect nothing less than a heated denial. That’s what we got. Waxman went so far as to demand that The American Spectator, which is reporting on the story, retract it. No such luck.

I wonder if Mr. Waxman has seen “The Lives of Others“?

Every so often, probably much to her handlers’ chagrin, a fleeting image of Hillary’s Clinton’s true agenda slips out — and the picture it paints of perhaps the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination’s vision of America is as startling as it is frightening.

In a speech delivered last week at the Manchester School of Technology in New Hampshire, the junior senator from New York called for a return to “shared prosperity” and tax “fairness,” while expanding access to quality education and healthcare for all Americans.

“I believe that one of the most crucial jobs of the next president is to define a new vision of economic fairness and prosperity for the 21st century — a vision for how we ensure greater opportunity for our next generation,” Clinton said. “I consider myself a thoroughly optimistic and modern progressive. I believe we can grow our economy in the face of global competition — and in a way that benefits all Americans. I believe we can curb the excesses of the marketplace — and provide more opportunities for more Americans to succeed.”

Shared prosperity? New vision of economic fairness? Excesses of the marketplace? The only thing missing from her manifesto was, “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”

Like her inspiration, Karl Marx, Ms. Clinton apparently didn’t get the memo that centralized planning of that sort was long ago discredited. The Soviet Union collapsed because of it, while China is managing to hang on only to the extent the country has turned away from collectivism and embraced a free-market economy.

“Hillary Clinton’s America is a social democracy rather than a Constitutional Republic, a nation based on government intrusion in every aspect of an individual’s life,” writes Bill Wilson at WDC Media.com “This is the type of society that failed under the Soviet Union, and even Communist China has abandoned these … philosophies. Americans are a free people, but they won’t be if Hillary Clinton has her way.”

According to Clinton, “What the Bush administration touts as an ‘ownership society’ really is an ‘on your own’ society that has widened the gap between rich and poor. I prefer a ‘we’re all in it together’ society.”

“Uh-oh,” warns Jay Nordlinger at National Review Online. “When you hear rhetoric like that, guard your wallet, because it amounts to an apologia for socialism. A leader like Hillary comes in blasting ‘you’re on your own,’ and touting ‘we’re all in it together.’ They make themselves feel good through redistributionist and collectivist policies. And then the rest of the country feels bad — because such policies always impoverish and block.”

Referring to the current administration’s economy — an economy, by the way, in which inflation is statistically invisible, unemployment hovers at its lowest sustained level since the Eisenhower years, and the stock market has shattered all previous records for profitability — Clinton laments, “It’s also important to understand these policies are consistent with the administration’s theory about how we should manage our economy — leave it all up to the individual.”

As opposed to what? Leave it up to Hillary?

What she obviously — and probably purposely — neglects to explain is just who gets to define the economic fairness she seeks to impose at the point of a bayonet? If not the marketplace, whose only agenda is satisfying the impartial laws of supply and demand, who gets decide how much prosperity will be shared, and with whom?

Even a cursory look at the Constitution, assuming Sen. Clinton has ever had one, reveals quite obviously it was never the intent of the Founding Fathers to establish a nation in which the government could or would exist to “level the playing field,” let alone provide for our every need. But when you’ve concluded you’re more qualified to make decisions than the market itself, it’s only a short leap to deciding you know more about how to found a nation that Jefferson, Adams, Madison, et al.

“(Clinton’s) assertion is bunk,” notes columnist Cal Thomas, “but it is the typical class warfare bunk that comes from rich white liberals who want to take money from one group of people and give to others who didn’t earn it in hopes they will become loyal Democratic voters.”

That’s as good an explanation as any. To paraphrase Marx, “From each according to how much elitists like Hillary Clinton choose to take, to each according to how much it takes to keep them voting Democratic.”

Ah, spring. The birds are chirping, the bees are buzzing, flowers are blooming and gas prices are going through the roof. Which can only mean the other rite of the season — Democrats calling for price controls — can’t be far behind.

Right on cue, U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), for example, couldn’t resist the temptation last week to propose legislation that would make price-gouging by petroleum companies a federal crime. Under Cantwell’s bill, new provisions would allow the president to declare a national energy emergency, under which price gougers would be subject to special fines and criminal penalties. The Federal Trade Commission would be responsible for conducting investigations and fining companies.

Never mind that 28 states already have laws on the books punishing oil and gas gouging, and that no credible study has ever found evidence of price-gouging in the first place. What matters is creating a scapegoat. And if the cost of her demagoguery is a huge and unnecessary encroachment of government into the private sector, that’s a risk Cantwell, as a proud liberal, is willing to take.

Of course she’s not alone. Columnist George Will recently recalled that, “The day after Exxon Mobil’s announcement that it earned $39.5 billion in 2006, Hillary Clinton said: ‘I want to take those profits, and I want to put them into a strategic energy fund that will begin to fund alternative smart energy, alternatives and technologies that will begin to actually move us toward the direction of independence.’

Clinton’s “take,” Will notes, “reveals her confiscatory itch. Her clunky ‘toward the direction of’ suggests that she actually knows that independence is as chimeric a goal as Soviet grain production goals were.’

But of course actual success has never been the point. It’s all about positioning oneself as the champion of the little guy struggling to keep fuel in his tank and food on the table. Price controls — although they’ve never worked in for commodity on which they’ve been tried — are the logical extension of this illogical mindset.

“History and basic economics teach us that such policies will result in shortages in the market and hardships for consumers,” wrote Margo Thorning, Ph.D., senior vice president and chief economist for the American Council for Capital Formation, in an Albany (N.Y.) Times-Union guest column. “Anyone who remembers the gas shortages and inflation from the 1970s knows this is not a legacy to fall back on. The reality is that fluctuations in fuel prices serve as basic signals to producers to either increase or decrease supplies. This holds true in times of crisis and normal operations.”

But why rely on sound economic theory when you can create a bogeyman instead?

Rather than faulting private businesses for making a profit — which, contrary to the understanding of many in Congress, is precisely what businesses are supposed to do — perhaps lawmakers like Cantwell and Clinton might want to reconsider their votes to block new oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR). Or they might want to ease environmental restrictions that have prevented a single new petroleum refinery from being opened in the U.S. for the past 30 years. They might even agree to reduce the amount government takes, since federal taxes — to say nothing of state taxes, which are even higher — account for vastly more of the per-gallon price than the oil company’s profits ever could.

But while such a strategy would put them on the right side of economics and logic, it might not keep them on the right side of voters anxious to vent their frustrations by succumbing to a little scare-mongering.

And we can’t have that, can we?

Like many Europeans, Johannes Grenzfurthner, a professor of art theory at the University of Applied Science in Graz, Austria, is required by law to take five weeks a year of paid vacation, according to a story posted on May 1 at the U.S. News and World Report website. Not surprisingly, he doesn’t find the requirement a serious hardship. “I think if you come back from a trip,” Grenzfurthner said, “you usually have a new perspective on working.”

No doubt. And guess which option, working or not working, his newfound perspective tells him is preferable? Hint: Notice the professor said “if” you come back from your trip.

None of which is disparage vacations. The question is whether it’s the proper role of the government to require businesses to provide a certain number of paid vacation days to their employees — and then require the employee to take them.

In Austria, Finland, and — quel surprise — France, the government mandates 30 days of vacation time each year for employees with at least one year of service, and a paid month off is an integral part of most Europeans’ lives. By comparison, most U.S. companies offer a paltry 10 days of paid leave. “The U.S. is woefully behind the other countries,” says Carol Sladek, a senior work-life consultant for Hewitt Associates. “The U.S. doesn’t have any kind of federal law that requires employers to offer any vacation at all.”

No federal intervention? Sacré bleu. Here’s a thought — maybe America would actually have more time to slag off if we weren’t busy fueling the economic engine that feeds and clothes not only ourselves but a big chunk of the rest of the world, too. While we’re on the subject, maybe more Americans would have visited Euro Disney by now if they just hadn’t been so darned busy pulling Europe’s croissants out of two world wars in the past century.

Most U.S. firms do, in fact, give employees vacations, a Reuters story published just this week pointed out. But the lack of government guarantees means one in four private-sector workers do not get paid leave, said researchers for the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a Washington, D.C., think tank. “The United States is the only advanced economy in the world that does not guarantee its workers paid vacation days and paid holidays,” said economist John Schmitt. “Relying on businesses to voluntarily provide paid leave just hasn’t worked,” he added. “It’s a national embarrassment that 28 million Americans don’t get any paid vacation or paid holidays.”

Why, exactly? In turns out Americans understand that, as with most things, the question of how much or how little vacation a company ought to provide or the employee ought to take should be left up to the free market. If, as Prof. Grenzfurthner and other paid vacation enthusiasts insist, taking time off actually makes an employee more productive, wouldn’t companies be forcing people to go more often? In any case, shouldn’t the question of what makes the company more productive be left up to the company rather than the employee — or worse, a bunch of eggheads and bean-counters in Washington, D.C.?

Most shockingly of all to European sensibilities, Americans actually seem to find the whole concept of honest labor virtuous. According to the same U.S. News and World Report article, around 23 percent of employed adults in the United States report checking work e-mail or voicemail while vacationing. “In Europe they definitely take time off to relax and recharge,” says Marie Dufresne, a senior consultant at the Hay Group, a global management consultancy. “We are just not a culture of people laying back and taking time off.”

Which does as much as anything to explain why the U.S. is the strongest, most prosperous — and most generous — nation on earth, while France is, well, France.

And vive la difference.

No longer content simply to stifle any future discussion of religion in the public square, the forces of stultifying political correctness have now set about the task of rewriting the nation’s history to pretend faith never played a role in the nation’s founding or subsequent development.

A high school math teacher from Poway, Calif., filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Poway Unified School District on Monday, alleging school officials violated his constitutional rights by ordering him to remove two banners including the words “God” and “Creator” from his classroom walls. The catch is, the words weren’t displayed in the context of a Biblical verse or religious instruction. They were reproduced as historically accurate documents and lyrics.

The banners, measuring approximately 7 feet long by 2 feet wide, were emblazoned with the phrases: “In God We Trust,” the official motto of the United States; “One Nation Under God,” from the Pledge of Allegiance; “God Bless America,” a patriotic song considered to be the unofficial national anthem of the United States; “God Shed His Grace On Thee,” a line from America the Beautiful; and “All Men Are Created Equal, They Are Endowed By Their Creator,” an excerpt from the preamble to the Declaration of Independence.

Heaven forbid — so to speak.

“These are not the Ten Commandments or Bible texts,” said Robert Muise, Johnson’s attorney. “These are lines from songs, mottos and slogans familiar to all of us as part of our history and patriotic heritage. It is the responsibility of all public school teachers, including Mr. Johnson, to educate students regarding our nation’s history and its founding. Mr. Johnson’s educational banners serve that purpose.”

By way of comparison, just a few doors down the hall from Johnson’s classroom, a fellow teacher has displayed a picture of the grunge rock band Nirvana on her door. Other teachers have slogans from sports celebrities and cartoon characters. As far as can be determined, none of these educators was reprimanded, which can only lead the school’s students to conclude that the edifying words of Kurt Cobain or Allen Iverson are more worthy of consideration than those of Jesus Christ.

For the record, we disagree with Johnson and his attorneys’ claim that the actions of the school board amount to an infringement of his First Amendment rights. A teacher, like any other employee, serves at the pleasure of his supervisor and does not have the unchallenged right to say or display any message he or she pleases in defiance of his supervisors.

But just because the school board’s actions weren’t unconstitutional doesn’t mean they weren’t stupid. First Amendment considerations aside, Johnson’s lawsuit further alleges that the restriction “serves no valid educational purpose, is not reasonably related to any legitimate pedagogical concern, and conveys a government-sponsored message of disapproval of and hostility toward religion.” (More.) Those points, it would seem, are beyond dispute.

By all accounts, the same banners have been posted in Johnson’s classroom for 25 years without a single complaint from a student or teacher. And why should they? “Basically, these are the same things that you would find in the dollar bill, Pledge of Allegiance and a lot of other governmental areas,” said Poway parent Marie Dell’Aquila.

Peter Scheer, the executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition described the offending phrases as an accurate representation of America’s history, and as such, an important component of a quality education. “No one in their right mind would think that to read segments or excerpts from the great founding documents of this country that include invocations of the Almighty could conceivably violate some students’ religious rights,” Scheer said.

No one in their right mind, perhaps. But if denying facts and rewriting the nation’s history simply to serve the purpose of imposing a value-neutral, secular government on a nation whose founders intended something entirely different isn’t insane, what is?

Hillary Clinton, well-known constitutional scholar, lamented the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision this week to uphold a ban on partial-birth abortions, calling it a “departure from four decades of Supreme Court rulings” and an “erosion of our constitutional rights.”

She’s right about the first part, but 360 degrees out of whack on the second. In fact, the ruling marks the first major return to constitutionality (and, hence, individual freedom) on the abortion issue since the Court created a right to privacy out of whole cloth in Griswold v. Connecticut back in 1965.

Griswold, in case you’d forgotten, involved a Connecticut law that prohibited the use of contraceptives. By a vote of 7-2, the Supreme Court invalidated the law on the grounds that it violated the “right to marital privacy.” Although the Bill of Rights does not explicitly mention “privacy,” Justice William O. Douglas, writing for the majority, ruled that the right was found in the “penumbras” and “emanations” of other constitutional protections.

The Court stretched the bounds of reason still further in 1972 by applying Griswold to justify abortion in Roe v. Wade, since the hitherto undiscovered right to privacy clearly entitled mothers to kill their unborn babies. Thus the Court relied on a “right” the Founders didn’t put in the Constitution — but obviously must have intended to — as the basis for a decision that legalized a practice that was banned in every state in the union when the nation was formed and for 200 years thereafter.

Which brings us back to Sen. Clinton and her cockeyed view of where “rights” come from and who’s eroding whose. While it’s true Court precedent since Roe has tended to uphold its precepts, there’s no constitutional reason why future decisions can’t deviate from that standard if new justices determine that Roe itself was wrongly decided. Clinton complains that Wednesday’s decision disregards 40 years of precedent but apparently doesn’t mind that Roe’s disregarded 200 years of precedent.

In short, this most recent case — and the overturning of Roe v. Wade, if it happens — aren’t a violation of anyone’s rights. On the contrary, Roe ranks among the most egregious power grabs in judicial history and anything that undermines it completely or even partially is a nothing more than a return of the right to decide such issues to the individual voter. Rather than seven unelected justices deciding behind closed doors what rights we must respect based on dubious interpretations of the Constitution, overturning Roe would put the matter back in the hands of each state legislature — where it rightfully belongs.

Hillary’s convoluted take on the law notwithstanding, Wednesday’s ruling is just the opposite of an infringement of individual rights. In fact, the individual’s right to representative government has been in steady decline since 1972. But this week hopefully marks the beginning of a return to an era when individuals had the right to make their own laws via their elected state representatives rather than having them forced down their throats by judicial tyranny.

“There are rights which it is useless to surrender to the government and which governments have yet always been found to invade,” Thomas Jefferson once famously opined. “These are the rights of thinking and publishing our thoughts by speaking or writing; the right of free commerce; the right of personal freedom.” (More.)

Words like those would stick in the throat of Jefferson, whose 264th birthday the nation will largely — and unfortunately — ignore on April 13, if he were still here to see the hash we’ve made of the republic he helped found. Even more appallingly, he’d be stunned to hear his name invoked to support precisely those sorts of big-government enterprises he so clearly opposed.

“The common thread of Democratic history, from Thomas Jefferson to Bill Clinton,” wrote Ron Brown, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, “has been an abiding faith in the judgment of hardworking American families, and a commitment to helping the excluded, the disenfranchised and the poor strengthen our nation by earning themselves a piece of the American Dream.”

Not exactly. In fact, Jefferson defined liberty as “unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.” Does that sound like Jefferson would be a big fan of the welfare state people like Ron Brown so ardently support? More to the point, while Jefferson was most certainly a believer in people “earning themselves a piece of the American dream,” he was decidedly not in favor of enforcing that vision by confiscating the resources of one group of free Americans and turning them over to another.

In fact, according to a must-read analysis of Jefferson’s legacy written this week by novelist Gen LaGreca in the Fauquier (Va.) Times-Democrat, Jefferson believed that “we may earn money and buy a house, but we may not expect the government to seize taxpayers’ money to provide us with a house for free.”

In Jefferson’s own words: “To take from one because it is thought his own industry … has acquired too much, in order to spare others who have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate the first principle of association — the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.”

Governments, LaGreca notes, “are instituted solely to protect our rights from violation by force or fraud, apprehending perpetrators who pick our pockets or break our legs; otherwise, government stays out of our lives.”

That’s entirely consistent with Jefferson’s view that government, “shall refrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.”

Again, does that sound like someone who would endorse the chronic abuses of property rights and individual liberties visited upon the people of this country by its current government in the name of leveling the playing field — or whatever cliche is currently in vogue?

“Today,” DeGreca writes, “Jefferson’s jewel — a country where individuals live free and pursue their happiness unencumbered by the state — is losing its brilliance. Officials who can’t tell a diamond from a rhinestone hammer away at our rights. The way to honor Thomas Jefferson - and ourselves - is to rescue liberty and live up to the ideals for which he, as a signer of the Declaration, pledged his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor.”

Jefferson himself couldn’t have said it better.

Assuming environmental extremists were capable of either deep thought or humor, we might just be persuaded their latest drive — to ban the sale and use of incandescent light bulbs — was nothing more than a brilliant attempt at self-satire. But since we know better, we’re forced to conclude it’s just the latest in a long line of expensive, oppressive and ill-thought-out schemes hatched by people who never seem to run out of ways to make themselves feel better by telling the rest of us how to live our lives.

Los Angeles Democratic Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, “Decrying the inefficiency of the common light bulb” according to an AP article, announced in late January that he wants California to ban the ubiquitous glass glow-globe. (More.) Not to be outdone in the battle of hyperbole, San Rafael, Calif., Democrat Jared Huffman claims using the more efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) “would prevent 1,300 pounds of carbon dioxide from being pumped into the atmosphere by electric plants.” Carbon dioxide, lest we forget, is the chief bogeyman behind global warming. Never mind that CO2 is essential to the growth of trees, flowers and all those green things environmentalists claim to love so much, but we digress.

According to the U.S. Energy Star program, if every American home replaced just one standard incandescent light bulb with a long-lasting compact fluorescent, it would eliminate greenhouse gases equal to the emissions of 800,000 cars. (More.) But, of course, there’s a catch. In fact, a whole ozone-ful of catches the greenies either don’t want you to think about or, more likely, haven’t thought too much about themselves.

For starters, CFLs are outrageously expensive — at least $2.50 per bulb, or roughly 10 times what you pay for an incandescent bulb. But they’re more energy-efficient, so they save you money in the long run, right? And besides, they’re better for Mother Earth.

Turns out, neither is true. A devastating article in the American Thinker points out that using CFLs in your home could actually increase your energy bill by forcing utility companies to raise their rates in order to recoup their own capital investments. Moreover, since CFLs produce less light than their much-scorned incandescent alternatives, consumers will have to use more of them in order to produce the same amount of luminesence.

But what about the greenhouse gases, you ask? Turns out not one single CFL bulb is currently produced in this country. They’re produced in China, which is opening an average of one new coal-fired power plant per week to fuel its growing economy. Force Americans to use nothing but fluorescent bulbs and you not only send American jobs to China, but you also put more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere courtesy of their power plants, which don’t employ the technology ours do and aren’t subject to the environmental regulations ours are.

It gets worse. CFLs, it turns out, use mercury. Not a lot, maybe, but when you’re talking about 20 billion light bulbs in this country, it adds up pretty quickly, creating a huge hazardous waste problem in the country’s landfills.

So exactly why are we doing this? Simple — so some smug limousine liberal in Bel Air can feel good about himself. “People who favor such an action,” writes Joseph Farah on WorldNet Daily, “justify it on the basis of energy saving and protection of the environment and fighting global warming. It is their sense of morality that drives them to impose their will on the rest of us.”

Those who “share this coercive agenda don’t care about freedom,” Farah continues. “They don’t understand personal rights. They don’t believe in self-government. They don’t recognize the sovereignty of the individual. They don’t know God. And they sure don’t get America.”

Unfortunately, too often America doesn’t get them, either.

– Posted by Jeff Fairmont on April 4.

It didn’t take long — less than one election cycle — for political operatives to find a way around the obvious (although not so obvious the Supreme Court could find them) First Amendment violations built into the McCain-Feingold campaign finance “reforms.” In the years since, the pendulum has swung even further away from the regulators.The chilling question is, what are they planning to do about it?

As we’ve written before, McCain-Feingold, passed in 2002, was touted as a way to get the big money out of political campaigns. By 2004, however, it had accomplished just the opposite, giving free rein to well-heeled zealots like George Soros to say anything they pleased through their so-called “527″ organizations while putting strict limits on what an average individual could accomplish with a grassroots operation.

Ah, but that was before the advent of YouTube. As Sen. Hillary Clinton famously discovered last week, the wildly popular website is poised to have an enormous effect on the 2008 election. Clinton, much to her chagrin, was the subject of a brilliant consumer-generated video ad spoofing Apple Computers’ classic “1984″ television ad which, in turn, took a shot at IBM by portraying Big Blue as Big Brother.

While it’s unclear whether the Hillary-as-Big-Brother ad, created by a consultant working for a company connected indirectly to Barack Obama, had any long-term negative impact on Clinton’s campaign, there’s no doubt it exposed a fatal flaw unforeseen by McCain-Feingold. Namely, you can regulate political speech all you like on commercial television, but in an Internet environment still largely free of government interference, wide-open democracy is still the order of the day.

“Fortunately,” notes columnist Rich Lowry, “in a large, restless and boisterous country, people will always exploit the lacunae in any scheme meant to regulate political debate.”

In addition to the Hillary spot, John Edwards and Mitt Romney have each been skewered in more than a few YouTube ads. An earlier YouTube piece arguably torpedoed the presidential aspirations of Sen. George Allen.

Not only are Internet videos uncensored, but they’re also free. Thus, they not only offend the politicians lampooned therein, but they also anger mainstream media outlets, which stand to lose millions in campaign advertising revenue — to say nothing of the power that goes along with having a monopoly on the dissemination of political messages — once candidates start going over the media’s head directly to the public via YouTube.

Which means you can pretty much bet some lawmaker very soon will introduce legislation designed to muzzle those who flout the intent of McCain-Feingold by daring to express their views without the approved filters. And such legislation will no doubt be enthusiastically endorsed by the old-line media.

“Congressmen want us to maintain favorable opinions of them,” writes Michael S. Rozeff at LewRockwell.com. “They will attempt to control the technology as they have controlled other forms of communication. I hope they fail and fail miserably. Free speech, reflecting free thought and a free mind, is the first and last bulwark of individual freedom.”

Until the next time someone writes a law restricting it — to be followed quickly by an innovative patriot who finds a way to express the freedom too many of his elected representatives are eager to strip from him.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee is preparing to endure former Vice President Al Gore’s bloviations tomorrow on global warming, but if the lawmakers want the real picture the guy they ought to be listening to is Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus, who likens environmentalism to communism and considers it the greatest threat to individual liberty faced by the world today.

Responding on Monday to U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, and former House Speaker Denny Hastert, R-Ill., the Czech leader said: “It becomes evident that while discussing climate we are not witnessing a clash of views about the environment, but a clash of views about human freedom.”

“As someone who lived under communism for most of my life, I feel obliged to say that the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity at the beginning of the 21st century is not communism or its various softer variants,” said Klaus. “Communism was replaced by the threat of ambitious environmentalism.”

In his written response to the House committee members, the Czech leader said: “I warn against adopting regulations based on the so-called precautionary principle which the environmentalists use to justify their recommendations, the clear benefit of which they are not able to prove. Responsible politics should take into account the opportunity costs of such proposals and be aware of the fact that the wasteful environmentalist policies are adopted to the detriment of other policies, thus neglecting many other important needs of millions of people all over the world. Each policy measure must be based on a cost-benefit analysis.”

Base policy on logic and reason rather than emotion and Al Gore’s scientifically discredited propoganda film (1|2). Who is this guy and why should we believe him? Turns out Vaclav Klaus holds a Ph.D. in economics and has seen up close and personal how an authoritarian government can twist facts to justify its agenda. And while he’s no scientist, he’s got hundreds of eminent ones who agree with him, while Gore — the divinity school dropout — has Leonardo DiCaprio (no lover of freedom himself, by the way.)

Conservative radio mega-pundit Rush Limbaugh, commenting Monday on Klaus’ testimony, agreed the environmentalists’ ulterior motive is more control than climate. “Global warming is not about science, (and) it’s not about saving the planet,” he said. “It’s about taking away people’s freedom and getting them to go along with it on the basis of guilt, the fact that they have sinned in destroying the climate and killing the polar bears so you’ll give up your freedom, make modifications in your guilty lifestyle, raise taxes that you will pay — gladly — so just to feel better about yourselves.”

Echoes columnist Mark Lowry, “The debate on global warming is distracting us from the battle at hand. We are in the fight of our lives to preserve self-rule in America and defeat authoritarian leadership of our government.”

“The population,” adds Helga Zepp-LaRouche, chairwoman of the Civil Rights Solidarity Movement (BüSo) in Germany, “is currently being conditioned with a dramatic fear-campaign, to get them to accept a massive shrinking of their living standards and civil rights—and ultimately a different world order.”

“Environmentalism only pretends to deal with environmental protection,” Klaus last week told a gathering of libertarians at the CATO Institute. “Behind the terminology is really an ambitious attempt to radically reorganize the world.”

With deep thinkers like Al Gore as their leaders. What he couldn’t win — or steal — at the ballot box in 2000 Gore is now trying to scare us into handing over to him. The truly terrifying thought is just how many Americans would willingly do so.

According to an article last month in the Los Angeles Times, the ongoing debate over human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccinations “highlights the balance between government’s obligation to safeguard the health of its people and the rights of individuals to make their own decisions about matters affecting their health and their children’s health.”Close, but not quite. In fact, the debate highlights the never-ending insistence of government — this time at the state level via public schools — to create an “obligation” where none constitutionally exists, at the expense of parental rights and responsibilities.

The HPV vaccine is designed to immunize against certain sexually transmitted diseases, such as cervical cancer and genital warts, which are caused by human papillomaviruses. Cervical cancer, health experts say, will strike about 11,150 women in the U.S. this year and claim an estimated 3,670 lives. Globally, it is the second most-common cancer among women, according to the World Health Organization. In short, they say, the vaccine will save lives.

And thus, all parents should be forced by law to have their daughters vaccinated by the time they reach sixth grade. Or so the do-gooders believe. But not everyone agrees.

The Texas State House of Representatives voted 118-23 on Wednesday to approve a bill that would override an executive order signed by the governor and keep the vaccine off the list of required shots for school attendance.

Elsewhere, however, a New Mexico bill requiring the shots for sixth-grade girls is expected to be signed by the end of this week by Gov. Bill Richardson. And Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has said he would sign a similar bill passed by his state’s legislature. Other states, such as California, Massachusetts and Wyoming are also dealing with the issue in one form or another.

Supporters of mandatory vaccines liken them to measles, mumps and rubella shots — all of which are already required for school children. But that argument misses the key distinction: All of those diseases are communicable by casual contact, and vaccinating children is a good idea to keep them from spreading the diseases to others. But it’s not the job of government to protect us from ourselves. Assuming governments have any obligation at all where health is concerned, it is to protect the public from being infected by others. But when it comes to protecting ourselves from diseases that can’t be spread casually, that should be an individual decision — or, in the case of minors, a parental decision.

Dr. Richard Zimmerman, who recently wrote an ethical analysis of the vaccine’s policy options for the journal “Vaccine,” sums up the issue perfectly. As a professor of family medicine at the University of Pittsburgh who has served on the committee that advises the CDC on immunization policy, Zimmerman says that just because a school-linked mandate might work well is not reason enough to impose it.

Proponents of mandatory vaccination are invoking the philosophy of utilitarianism, the notion that decisions should be made to provide the greatest good for the greatest number of people, Zimmerman says. That philosophy, he says, can be used to justify all sorts of ethically suspect behavior. Although he plans to have his daughter vaccinated against HPV, he says he should not be coerced to do so.

“HPV is not caught by sitting next to someone in class but by sexual contact, which often is a lifestyle choice,” he says. “Using school laws, which were developed to protect children from communicable diseases like smallpox and measles, to mandate vaccination against a sexually transmitted infection, is to use the ends to justify the means.”

Just so. But when did logic and constitutional rights ever stand in the way of people convinced they know what’s best for everyone and determined to impose their vision of it whether the rest of us like it or not?

– Posted by Jeff Fairmont on March 14.

You think the NFL, which several years ago banned excessive end zone celebrations following touchdowns, is the No Fun League? Try playing — or, to be more specific, rooting for — high school basketball in Washington state, where government officials are actually considering slapping a ban on booing.

Although the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association subsequently dropped the idea, the fact remains the organization this week made national headlines by suggesting regulations to crack down on negative conduct in the stands, a WIAA spokesman said. “They’re kidding, right?” asked Rainier Beach High School boys basketball coach Mike Bethea. “I can see stopping someone if they’re saying derogatory remarks, but not letting people boo? Come on.”

Unfortunately, the organization was quite serious, and the stated reason for the proposal was the increasing difficulty of recruiting referees willing to subject their tender sensibilities to the prospect of disapproval. Association officials also say the guidelines remind fans to cheer for their team, and not against the other.

“I don’t know why people think it’s acceptable to boo in the first place,” WIAA Executive Director Mike Colbrese said. “It’s a pretty novel concept to me.”

Booing a novel concept? Has this guy ever set foot in a high school gymnasium? Does he even know any teenagers?

“Could it be,” wonders Chicago Daily Herald columnist Mike Imrem, “that Mr. Colbrese was the object of boos while in high school? Or, for that matter, given a wedgie he can’t forgive? Or a pantsing he can’t forget? Boo-hoo to you, sir.”

“Colbrese, whom I have the utmost respect for,” writes Seattle Times columnist Steve Kelley, “is right to want to keep a level of decorum at high-school events. We don’t want ugly cheers igniting fans and starting fights that spill out into the parking lot after games. And certainly there should be no swearing, no throwing objects on the floor, no serious taunting of players or fans, referees or sportswriters. Those are self-evident crimes that need to be punished. But legislating against booing would be taking the rules one step too far.”

Make that two steps too far. According to news accounts, some WIAA leagues have already outlawed such outrages as foam fingers, handmade banners and painting your face in your team’s colors. Where exactly does it end? “You might as well banish cheering as well,” Kelley suggests, “because that, too, can be distracting and intimidating to opposing players and fans. The WIAA could mandate that all state high-school sports events be played in funereal silence.”

Don’t give them any ideas. In fact, banning booing — even suggesting doing so — is the logical extension of the “everybody wins,” “no one gets their feelings hurt” mentality that permeates so much of youth sports these days. It isn’t fair, the reasoning goes, that anyone should have to lose, so let’s just cheer for everyone and then go out for ice cream together afterwards.

This philosophy, or what passes for one, ignores the obvious point that the very reason sports appeal to people in this outcome-neutral, morally relative world of ours is precisely because it’s the last stand for winners and losers. Unlike the realms of politics and pop culture, there’s no spin in sports. You either win or you lose, and, depending on which side you’re rooting for, that’s cause to either cheer or boo.

Until the crowd control police put a stop to it, that is.

– Posted by Jeff Fairmont on March 6.

If you’ve been laying awake nights wondering where the country’s next generation of young frog boilers will come from, you can rest easy. Apparently their indoctrination is coming along just fine up in the Pacific Norwest.

According to an article in the winter issue of “Rethinking Schools” magazine, teachers at the Hilltop Children’s Center, a private school in Seattle, have developed an innovative use for Legos — teaching children about the evils of private property ownership.

According to the story, students at the school had been building an elaborate “Legotown,” only to see the structure accidentally demolished. Rather than simply consoling the children and perhaps offering them a life lesson about starting all over when you suffer a setback, however, teachers decided its destruction was an opportunity to explore “the inequities of private ownership.” According to the teachers, “Our intention was to promote a contrasting set of values: collectivity, collaboration, resource-sharing, and full democratic participation.”

Up until the time it was destroyed, the students were allegedly incorporating into Legotown “their assumptions about ownership and the social power it conveys.” These assumptions “mirrored those of a class-based, capitalist society — a society that we teachers believe to be unjust and oppressive,” according to the teachers.

Heaven forbid. One misguided youngster even had the temerity to tell his teachers, “”If I buy it, I own it.” No word on whether he had his mouth washed out with soap for that indiscretion, but the teachers certainly plunged right in and started getting his mind right.

Over the course of the next several months, little Ivan, or whatever his name is, and his teachers explored such concepts as fairness, equity, and power — from a collectivist perspective, of course. Ultimately, in return for having their Legos returned, the children agreed to several guiding principles framed by the teachers, including that “All structures are public structures” and “All structures will be standard sizes.”

Soon the little cherubs were spouting such approved phrases as: “A house is good because it is a community house,” “We should have equal houses,” “They should be standard sizes,” and “It’s important to have the same amount of power as other people over your building.”

For extra credit, they might try memorizing “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”

Let’s be clear. No one is suggesting the teachers at Hilltop Children’s Center shouldn’t be able to spread such convoluted logic to their students. It would be different if we were talking about a public, taxpayer-supported institution, in which case it doesn’t seem like too much to ask that the teachers reinforce the system of government currently embraced by the country in which they live. But this is a private school and, just as the students in parochial schools can also be given religious instruction, the commissars of Hilltop Children’s Center have every right, with the permission of the parents involved, to spew their tripe all day long.

That doesn’t make it right, of course. In fact, it makes it despicable. But it does go a long way toward explaining why so many adults have such cockeyed views about private property.

Their brainwashing started early.

That’s so, uh, lame When Santa Rosa, Calif., high school student Rebeka Rice’s classmates teased her three years ago about her Mormon upbringing, asking questions like, “Do you have ten moms?” she responded with a phrase that can be heard 1,000 times a day in any high school in the nation: “That’s so gay.”

“Those three words,” according to an Associated Press story on the incident, “landed the high school freshman in the principal’s office and resulted in a lawsuit that raises this question: When do playground insults used every day all over America cross the line into hate speech that must be stamped out? (More.)

Not quite. In fact, the episode raises serious questions about the insanity of labeling anything uttered in casual conversation between two teenagers as “hate speech” simply because it might offend members of a protected class of individuals. More immediately, the case serves as a stark reminder of the hypocrisy of the thought police, who feel compelled to “stamp out” speech they deem inappropriate in the first place. To wit, Rice’s school didn’t lift a finger to discipline students who obviously and intentionally used language that demeaned her religious beliefs while throwing the book at her for simply repeating a phrase that has become so common that it’s arguable Rice didn’t even intend it as a jab at homosexuals.

Testifying last week about the 2002 incident, Rice, now 18, said when she uttered those words, she was not referring to anyone’s sexual orientation. She said the phrase meant: “That’s so stupid, that’s so silly, that’s so dumb.”

Whether or not you believe Rice wasn’t referring specifically to homosexuality isn’t the point. The point is that she didn’t invent the phrase “That’s so gay,” and if the lifestyle has become a euphemism in modern culture for “stupid,” “silly” or “dumb,” perhaps there’s more going on here than one indiscreet teenager using an inappropriate word in a private conversation.

In any case, the double standard is clear. While it’s debatable what Rice intended when she labeled someone’s actions as “gay,” there’s no question whatsoever her classmates intended to demean her religion with their words. For the record, Rice wasn’t even talking to a homosexual when she uttered the un-utterable. But her adversaries were talking directly to her when they made fun of her faith.

As always, gays and lesbians are a protected species but it’s open season on religious believers. Predictably, an account of the lawsuit in the Bay Area Reporter, which describes itself as “San Francisco’s oldest and largest local newspaper of record serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities,” makes no mention of the religious taunts that preceded Rice’s retort. But we hoped for more from what passes for “mainstream” media these days.

Testimony in the trial was concluded on Wednesday and a verdict is not expected for several months. Judge Elaine Rushing will have up to 90 days to issue her ruling after she hears opposing attorneys’ closing statements in either March or April.

We’ll be interested to see how the case turns out, but the fact that it happened at all — and that anyone could with a straight face defend the actions of the school administration — is by itself a serious indictment and an admission of how far we’ve sunk when it comes to abridging people’s free speech rights to spare the feelings of a favored class of victims.

There he goes again.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), author of easily the most egregious attack in recent years on your First Amendment rights, is planning even more mischief during the current session, this time a ban on so-called “527″ organizations. As was the case in 2002, when Congress passed his original McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act, the intent of his new measure seems to have less to do with getting big money out of campaigns than it does hampering his own political opponents.

Not surprisingly, advocates of free speech and small government are appalled at the “maverick” senator’s latest power grab. In a letter sent this week to McCain, a coalition of 18 grassroots, legal and public policy organizations emphatically expressed its opposition to any attempts to further muzzle political speech. (More.)

“We hold the 2002 McCain-Feingold legislation to be one of the greatest legislative assaults on the First Amendment ever passed by Congress,” the letter reads. “Just as we opposed that legislation, so, too, do we oppose any further restrictions on political speech.”

The letter points to the irony of Senator McCain’s plans, noting that the same 527 organizations the senator now seeks to silence are a direct consequence of McCain-Feingold. Named after tax code, a 527 is a tax-exempt organization created to influence political campaigns. “Soft money” refers to a type of unlimited contribution to these organizations from corporate and wealthy donors. McCain-Feingold put strict limits on when and how candidates could spend their dollars in the weeks leading up to an election, but did not limit 527s. Consequently, groups like billionaire George Soros’ MoveOn.org played an enormous role in the 2004 election.

The groups represented on the letter also pointed to McCain’s apparent unwillingness to limit his own speech by campaigning within the laws he was instrumental in passing as he seeks the 2008 GOP nomination. “We find it troubling that you would introduce and advocate new speech-stifling legislation at a time when it appears that your presidential campaign is willing to forego similar limitations in favor of your political aspirations,” the letter states. “To be clear, as a matter of principle we consider it fundamentally improper for taxpayer dollars — even if voluntary — to be used to subsidize political campaigns. As you seek, however, to further suppress the voices of the American people at times when it’s most important for them to speak — during elections — we remain curious as to why you haven’t committed to applying similar speech limitations to your own campaign.” >p> McCain “has been and remains committed to 527 reform, as evidenced by the fact that just two weeks ago he introduced a bill in Congress to restrict contributions to 527s,” according to Brian Jones, a senior adviser to McCain and spokesman for his presidential exploratory committee.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post story revealed campaign and IRS records that apparently show several of McCain’s finance co-chairmen “have given or raised large donations for political parties or 527 groups.”

McCain denied the report and called the story a “hit job,” but for some reason the senator’s word doesn’t have the currency it once did.

“In John McCain’s world, what’s good for the goose is apparently not good for the gander,” said Jeffrey Mazzella, president of the Center for Individual Freedom, one of the groups that signed the letter. “While Sen. McCain continues his assault on the free speech and association rights of the American people, Candidate McCain refuses to limit his own ability to speak. With McCain’s stated intentions to further muzzle the voices of the American people, it is clear that the only person he wishes to speak is himself. So much for ‘We the People.’ John McCain might as well change his campaign slogan from ‘Straight Talk Express’ to ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’ “

Freedom of speech (unless a judge disagrees with you) Once again the U.S. Constitution — or, to be more precise, one activist judge’s incomprehensible interpretation of it — apparently stipulates that the rights of one favored minority trump those of another, less favored, minority. And as usual, the one minority everyone seems to agree can be abused without penalty is religious believers. More precisely, Christians.

The venue in this case was Philadelphia, where a federal judge this week dismissed a lawsuit filed by members of a religious group who were arrested for staging a counter-demonstration during Outfest, the annual street fair held by the homosexual organization Philly Pride, back in October 2004. Before they were arrested, the six men and five women members of Repent America were confronted by a mob of homosexuals calling themselves the “Pink Angels,” who blew loud whistles and carried large pink signs to block the Christians’ message and access to the event. Others screamed obscenities at the Christians.

Philadelphia police officers, under the supervision of Chief Inspector James Tiano — the department’s designated “liaison to the gay and lesbian community,” refused to take any action against the homosexuals over the harassment, and instead carted the Repent America contingent off to jail. They spent 21 hours behind bars and Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham’s office charged them with “Ethnic Intimidation,” among other counts, under the state’s “hate crimes law.” Penalties could have ranged to 47 years in prison and fines of $90,000, but Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas Judge Pamela Dembe dismissed the criminal charges as being without merit.

The Christians responded by filing a civil rights lawsuit against the city and Philly Pride, basing their claims on the perfectly logical — unless you’re a federal judge — principle that they had just as much right to demonstrate on a public thoroughfare about the evils of homosexuality as the members of Philly Pride had to celebrate their lifestyle. (Probably more, given the frank sexual nature of most gay pride celebrations, but that’s beside the point.)

If that’s what Repent America thought, however, they were bitterly disappointed this week when U.S. District Judge Lawrence Stengel dismissed their claim, concluding that a “permit” granted by the city to the homosexuals allowed police to silence the Christian activists’ message on public streets.

Stengel said in his ruling that police were permitted to arrest the Christian protesters because of “safety concerns.” Although he didn’t specify just whose safety he was concerned with, it’s hard to imagine six Christians posed a serious threat to a mob of thousands assembled on the streets of the City of Brotherly Love. It’s equally unlikely, given the nature of the ruling, that Judge Stengel was overly concerned about the welfare of the Repent America representatives.

In any case, he decreed that Philly Pride’s permit not only gave the group the right to hold its $10,000, taxpayer-funded celebration of homosexuality on public streets, but that it was also entitled to be shielded from opposing points of view. “Obviously, we are very disappointed,” said Ted Hoppe, a lawyer for the Christian group. “We believe that the law clearly supports the rights of the plaintiffs in this case, as well as all individuals, to be able to engage in free speech activities on public streets and sidewalks.

“We do not believe,” he continued, “that the fact that there was an event also taking place, even with a permit, diminishes that right.”

“There is no constitutional right to drown out the speech of another person,” Stengel wrote, referring to the bullhorns and loudspeakers that Repent America employed to amplify its message. Repent America, he argued, “sought to communicate their own message that homosexuality is sinful in direct contrast to the message of Outfest, which aspires to create a nurturing environment for individuals to acknowledge their homosexual identity.”

Note the distinction? Two groups on one city street, each trying to shout down the other. One espouses a message with which the judge agrees, so it’s decribed as “nurturing” and permitted to intimidate the other, smaller group — whose members are summarily hauled off to jail.

Just for the sake of argument, imagine the roles were reversed and a group of Christian fundamentalists had obtained a permit to stage a demonstration at which they preached that homosexuals were damned for their sins. Think gay rights groups might stage a counter-protest? A loud one? You jolly well know they would.

Think Judge Stengel would defend to the death the right of the Christians to spread their message unfiltered by dissenting voices? Don’t hold your breath.

Theoretically, each group — and each point of view — is equally valid in the eyes of the law. Obtaining a permit from the city entitled Philly Pride to use public facilities to stage its event, and the First Amendment entitled it to state its case. But the same First Amendment protects the right of opposing groups to state their case and, more importantly, no law or Amendment gives either the right to be heard to the exclusion of every other voice.

In the marketplace of ideas, it’s always the best ideas that prevail. Except, that is, when a judge decides the only ideas worth hearing — and protecting — are those he agrees with.

– Posted by Jeff Fairmont on February 14.

Trampling on the rights of everyone just to prevent a favored class of victims from having their feelings hurt — especially when no offense was intended and not all the alleged victims can agree they’ve even been wronged — should always raise red flags in a free society. And that metaphor is all the more apt when the red flag in question is adorned with blue bars and white stars.

The Confederate battle flag has been at the center of many controversies lately, from the furor over whether to fly the flag atop the South Carolina state capitol building to the NCAA’s reluctance to hold sanctioned championship events in stadiums in South Carolina and Mississippi where the flag is displayed. But without question, the pettiest and silliest of the recent cases involves officials from the Anderson County (Tenn.) School District, who this fall denied a student the right to wear a T-shirt festooned with the Stars and Bars.

During November, Anderson County High School student Tom DeFoe and his father, Phil, filed a lawsuit against Director of Schools V.L. Stonecipher, the Anderson County Board of Education, Board Chairman John Burrell, ACHS Principal Greg Deal, Sid Spiva, Anderson County Career and Technical Center principal and its assistant principal, Merl Krull alleging the student’s constitutional rights were being violated because he wasn’t allowed to wear apparel featuring the rebel flag.

In the lawsuit complaint, the DeFoes noted that Tom DeFoe wore various items of clothing depicting the Confederate flag on several occasions this school year and was told each time that doing so violated the school’s dress code. He obeyed their instructions to cover or remove the clothing — until Oct. 30, that is, when he wore a T-shirt with a picture of the Confederate flag and the words, “If you have a problem with this flag you need a history lesson.”

ACHS Principal Deal allegedly told DeFoe to turn the shirt inside out or take it off. When he refused, he was suspended for violation of the dress code policy and insubordination. Dafoe was suspended a second time on Nov. 6 when he wore a belt buckle with an image of the Confederate flag and refused a request by Krull, the vocational school’s assistant principal, to remove or cover it.

No sane person would argue that a school has the right to set its own dress code and take reasonable steps to ensure that none of its students are unnecessarily offended. It’s also arguable that young Mr. Dafoe isn’t an entirely sympathetic figure, since he obviously knew his actions would provoke controversy that could distract the school from its primary mission of educating its students.

That said, it’s difficult to imagine the school making a similar fuss over a T-shirt that maligned Christians or criticized the war in Iraq. In such a case, in the unlikely event the school had banned the offending garment on the grounds someone’s feelings might be hurt simply by looking at it, you can rest assured the ACLU and a laundry list of self-appointed civil rights groups would have emerged from the woodwork determined to proclaim the First Amendment rights of the wearer to offend religious believers and political conservatives. But when the victim is the member of a more-favored minority, the First Amendment takes a back seat — even though the whole reason Dafoe wore his Confederate ensemble in the first place was to make precisely the point that the Stars and Bars should not be taken as a racist symbol.

Historically speaking, of course, there was considerable debate even at the height of the Civil War whether the dispute was over slavery. To northern abolitionists, there’s no question it was. But to the rebels — fewer than a quarter of whom owned any slaves at all, let alone a significant number of them — the issue was states’ rights. No less an authority than Abraham Lincoln (Wikipedia entry), who presumably knew what was at stake in the conflict, further muddled the issue when he declared, “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it.”

If there was no agreement in 1863 about whether the Confederate flag represented slavery and racism, how is the issue settled today?

“What, then, is the true symbolism of (the Confederate) flag?” writes Vivian, La., resident Dennis Miller in the Shreveport (LA) Times. “It represents a still ongoing struggle by the states and the people against a federal government obsessed with increasing its own power, arrogantly ignoring the Constitution which specifically limits that power. The Confederates tried to stop it. They failed. They tried to leave it. They failed. The newly emboldened government thinks, ‘Who can stop us now? Who really cares about the Constitution anyway?’ I’ll tell you. It’s the citizens who proudly fly the battle flag of the Confederate States of America.”

If the teachers of the Anderson County School District were more concerned with teaching the actual history of the Civil War instead of the watered-down, politically correct version, perhaps Mr. Dafoe’s T-shirt wouldn’t be controversial in the first place. But as usual, the winners get to write the history books — and make the rules about what students can wear while they’re reading them, apparently.

– Posted by Jeff Fairmont on Feb. 4.

Citing a condition he characterizes as “iPod Oblivion,” a New York state legislator has proposed a new law that would make it illegal for pedestrians to operate a personal electronic device while crossing a busy city street. For sheer obliviousness, however, no one walking around tuned into an iPod could possibly compare with lawmakers who insist on making rules that restrict the freedoms we all enjoy just to save a few self-absorbed knuckleheads from their own carelessness.

State Sen. Carl Kruger (D), who represents the 27th district of New York, is planning to introduce a bill during the current legislative session that would ban the use of hand-held gizmos such as BlackBerries, iPods, and portable video games while crossing streets in major New York cities, such as New York City, Buffalo and Albany.

Kruger insists tuning out while plugging in is a recipe for disaster and has resulted in at least three deaths on New York’s crowded streets just since September. He defines “iPod oblivion” as a state in which one is unaware of a world beyond the tunes pumping into his or her ears.

“What’s happening is when they’re tuning into their iPod or BlackBerry cell phone or video game, they’re walking into speeding buses and moving automobiles,” Kruger said in a statement. “It’s becoming a nationwide problem.”

For whom, exactly? “Government has an obligation to protect its citizenry,” Kruger continued. “This electronic gadgetry is reaching the point where it’s becoming not only endemic but it’s creating an atmosphere where we have a major public safety crisis at hand.” (More.)

The only crisis here is the one Kruger is fomenting with his appalling misunderstanding of the purpose of regulation. As the senator suggests, the government does have an obligation to protect its citizens — from other citizens and, increasingly, from the government. But not from themselves.

If you want to pass a law preventing drivers from listening to iPods or cell phones because when they’re distracted it puts innocent pedestrians at risk, that’s something worth discussing. But penalizing the victim makes no sense whatsoever.

Michael Rose, writing on tuaw.com, an unofficial Apple weblog, suggests that rather than passing unnecessary and unenforceable laws, legislators like Kruger use their bully pulpit to simply encourage iPod users to pay more attention. “Perhaps,” he writes, “instead of criminalizing stupidity (which rarely works), a targeted PR campaign on the subways could remind iPod users to ‘turn down and tune in’ while they navigate the mean streets.”

Perhaps, but at the end of the day, it should already be obvious to anyone with enough grey matter to comprehend such a message that wandering around distracted while cars are whizzing by just inches away probably isn’t such a good idea in the first place. For the overwhelming majority, the warning isn’t necessary — and the rest wouldn’t pay attention anyway. So what’s the point?

As always, the point is using the example of people who will always find a way to destroy themselves no matter how many well-intentioned laws you pass as a way to justify the creation of a nanny state that empowers the lawmakers as it weakens the rest of us.

“Liberty would quickly cease to exist if all of their proposals became law,” writes John Little on the Blogs of War website. “Their good intentions will eventually result in each one of us being wrapped in a cocoon of oppression if we don’t pay attention.”

Another day, a little more freedom lost.

– Posted by Jeff Fairmont on Feb. 9.

In the never-ending quest to cement themselves in positions of authority by promoting class envy and regulating activities the Constitution gives them no power to regulate, the latest target of opportunity for U.S. lawmakers is the pay and benefits of corporate executives.

To the surprise of only those unschooled in the ways of Congressional power grabs, one provision of the minimum wage bill currently working its was through Congress is aimed at the top executives of hundreds of large companies. The clause would prevent an individual from deferring more than $1 million per year in compensation, beginning this year.

But of course that’s just the tip of the regulatory iceberg. Earlier this month, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., promised to introduce legislation later this year to reform the “out of control” system for paying executives. He intends to propose rules to give shareholders more power over compensation packages.

More control? Shareholders already have the ultimate control in their ability to vote out of office the boards of directors who elect to give their CEOs such elaborate compensation. And if the bylaws and standards of how such votes take place vary from corporation to corporation, didn’t the stockholders agree to play by the company’s rules when then bought their shares?

Ah, but rules are made to be broken. And it’s so much easier once the legislative camel has its nose under your corporate tent. “We think this is only the beginning,” crowed Lee Farris, senior tax policy organizer for the advocacy group United for a Fair Economy. “We believe Congress will be pushed more and more to play a role in constraining CEO pay.”

Even President Bush, who ought to know better, seemed to be getting into the act this week when he warned Wall Street leaders to scale back lavish compensation packages for executives. Bush said he realized that stories about the enormous salaries and other perks for CEOs create anger and uncertainty that affect the country’s investors and, while he doesn’t back any government role in reducing those packages, he did encourage businesses to voluntarily address the “problem.”

“Government should not decide the compensation for America’s corporate executives,” Bush said. “But the salaries and bonuses of CEOs should be based on their success at improving their companies and bringing value to their shareholders.”

Again, assuming you believe in the virtue of the free-market system (an assumption that would leave you feeling very lonely these days on Capitol Hill), why is it a given that shareholders are angry? If that were true, wouldn’t they be avoiding the stock market rather than investing in record numbers? For that matter, if so many major companies were behaving all that irresponsibly, would the nation’s economy be percolating along the way it is?

In point of fact, this whole issue is a solution in search of problem that doesn’t exist. By and large, investors are sophisticated enough to understand that the demand for top management talent is fierce and that you pay the going rate with the expectation that having the right person at the top will add enough value to the company to offset what it takes to put him there.

Does it always work? Nope. It’s a crapshoot, but that’s how the market works. Does Congress step in whenever Kevin Costner collects $20 million for a movie no one pays to see? Don’t give them any ideas.

At the end of the day, it’s no more the job of lawmakers like Barney Frank to decide how much people make at the top of the corporate pay scale than it is people on the bottom of the pay scale. The truly depressing thing is that, in the current regulatory climate, they’re getting away with doing both.

Posted by Jeff Fairmont on January 31.

Ever have a difference of opinion with your boss? Congratulations, that makes you the latest member of America’s burgeoning victim class. And the really good news is, one day soon you’ll probably be able to file a lawsuit and collect damages over it.

A new movement to curb “workplace bullying” — which, for legal purposes, is defined as repeated verbal abuse, aggressive behavior, sabotage, humiliation or intimidation — is gathering steam across the country, with grassroots groups forming and legislation introduced in eleven states during the past four years. Although no anti-bullying bills have actually passed in any of them, advocates are hopeful that could soon change.

“It’s a silent epidemic,” said Gary Namie, a social psychologist and founder of the Workplace Bullying and Trauma Institute in Bellingham, Wash. “It’s about control. It’s what all bullies want — control.”

According to a study published by Michigan’s Wayne State University, almost half of U.S. workers believe they have been bullied at one point in their career. Based on the nebulous definition provided and the all-too-human tendency to blame others for our own problems, the only real mystery is why that number wasn’t higher.

It’s worth nothing that one of the laws currently being considered in state legislatures would actually criminalize workplace bullying, but they would ask employers to voluntarily correct and prevent abuses. And, most importantly, they would give “victims” the right to sue for damages. Under current laws, victims of bullying don’t have legal recourse unless they can prove the abuse was related to a “protected status,” such as race or gender. But one day soon maybe everyone can be a victim — so long as they feel intimidated by their employer.

No word yet on whether or not the employee’s actual work record will be a factor in the resulting lawsuits. Evidently it’s perfectly all right to be unproductive, but woe betide the supervisor who points it out without a smile on his face.

Not surprisingly, employers see the trend as frivolous at best and possibly dangerous. “It looks like just another sue-your-boss bill, opening up a whole new category for lawsuits that trial attorneys can plaintiff-shop for and then bring suits against employers for damages,” said Vincent Sollitto, a spokesman for the California Chamber of Commerce, when California introduced a so-called “healthy workplace” bill in 2003. “It clearly will be harmful to the employer community.”

You think?

Meanwhile, American businesses, Namie says, are beginning to address the problem because bully bosses cost them money. Work performance of the person targeted suffers, of course, but so does performance of other workers because morale sinks when office politics and dramas rise. Plus, staff turnover is expensive. “People don’t leave bad companies, they leave bad bosses,” says Gail Nicholson, a career counselor in Portland. (More.)

True, but isn’t that the company’s problem? Why exactly do we need a state law encouraging people not to act like jerks? Don’t we have a Constitutionally protected right to act like a jerk if we want to?

It’s not just a facetious question. First of all, who’s to say when a co-worker crosses the line from jerkdom to harassment? The victim? A judge? Doesn’t that open the door to all manner of meritless lawsuits? And wouldn’t it threaten productivity if supervisors spent all their time walking on eggshells rather than motivating their workers?

Such laws fundamentally confuse the question of who the job actually belongs to. Does it — as the founding fathers intended — belong to the employer, who can set the terms of employment that workers can either choose to accept or exercise their free-market rights to work elsewhere? Or does the job belong to the employee, who can dictate to the employer how he or she must be treated — and be the final arbiter of whether or not they are?

The truth is neither. When lawmakers take it upon themselves to intervene in what are, by definition, little more than petty office squabbles, what they are actually saying is that all jobs — even private sector jobs — belong to the government, which will set rules based on its own whims rather than any notion of what actually makes sense in the real world.

Little by little, degree by degree, the water temperature in the pot just keeps rising as we watch our freedoms eroded one by one.

– Posted by Jeff Fairmont on Jan. 24

A little-publicized case from Washington state was argued earlier this month before the U.S. Supreme Court and, depending on how the justices decide, has the potential to change the face of the labor movement in this country. More to point, the justices have it in their power to return to the individual worker the freedom to choose whether and to what extent he or she wants to be represented and what form that representation should take.
Not surprisingly, those who earn their living denying those freedoms or enjoy the support of those who do are fighting tooth and nail against such a development.

On Jan. 10, the Court heard oral arguments in two landmark First Amendment cases: Washington v. Washington Education Association and Davenport v. Washington Education Association. (Background.) At issue is the union’s use of mandatory dues to engage in political activities without first getting permission from teachers who don’t agree with the union’s political positions and don’t want their money used to support them. The Court will decide, once and for all, whose free speech rights are paramount: the individual, whose inalienable rights are protected by the Constitution, or union organizations, given a limited authority to collect dues under state laws.

The Washington Education Association, the state’s largest and most influential (some would say arrogant) teachers union, insists it has the right to spend nonmember money for political purposes — the money grabbed from the roughly 4,400 nonunion workers forced to pay dues for the privilege of the WEA negotiating on their behalf — without getting 4,400 approvals. (More.)

A 1992 state campaign finance law requires labor unions to ask permission of nonmembers, but the union had historically ignored the law and, when challenged in a lawsuit filed by the Evergreen Freedom Foundation — a nonpartisan Olympia, Wash., think tank — a Superior Court judge found the union had violated the rights of the teachers. On appeal, however, the state Supreme Court struck down the law last year, calling it burdensome and an infringement on organized labor’s First Amendment rights. Never mind the rights of the individual to work for a public, taxpayer-supported school district without being compelled to join — or at least support — a labor union. What counts is the right of the union, and if you think that turns the whole purpose of the U.S. Constitution on its head, you’re not alone.

“The (Washington State Supreme Court) agreed with the union’s argument that, regardless of how the union collects dues or how workers may feel about it, the union is free to spend the money as it pleases,” said Michael Reitz of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation. “The WEA argued in trial court that it has no fiduciary responsibility to the teachers it represents, and the court affirmed that.”

Justices on the Washington Supreme Court, by the way, are elected, which means they have to campaign — which means they have to raise money. And the majority being liberal, they accept funding from organized labor, including the WEA. Not that they considered doing so a conflict of interest, you understand.

Appealing the case to the U.S. Supreme Court represents “a first step toward securing the First Amendment free speech rights of teachers and 17 million union-represented employees across the country,” Reitz said. “Teachers’ rights have been abused by the union for long enough; it’s time for it to end.”

Simply put, the unions maintain the dues and fees collected from members and nonmembers alike belongs to the union to do with as it likes — unless the payer goes through a complicated “opt-out” procedure. The plaintiffs argue the burden should be on the union to prove its members want their money spent on politics by consciously “opting in.”

“A public sector union collects money from nonmembers, as required by a collective bargaining agreement backed up by a state statute,” notes Ross Runkel in his Supreme Court Times blog. “The state statute says the union can spend the money for political purposes only if the nonmember first ‘affirmatively authorizes’ it. The union wants to spend the money first, subject to a possible refund later on. The Supreme Court of the State of Washington ruled in favor of the union, saying the statute requiring nonmembers to ‘opt in’ was a violation of free speech. I have previously said I thought the state court was wrong in this case. Therefore, I expect a reversal from the U.S. Supreme Court and a loss for the Washington Education Association.”

From his lips to the justices’ ears.

– Posted by Jeff Fairmont on January 23

It’s hard to imagine a decision more personal than when to discipline one’s child and what form that discipline should take. Which makes it all the more infuriating that a California lawmaker has decided she’s entitled to help you make that decision.

Democratic assemblywoman Sally Lieber (above) plans to introduce a bill this week that would make her state the first in the nation to criminalize spanking, hitting or slapping a child under the age of four. (The story.) Violators of the law — heretofore known as “parents” — could face imprisonment for up to a year and fines as high as $1,000. Lieber said such a law is needed because spanking victimizes helpless children and breeds violence in society. “I think it’s pretty hard to argue you need to beat a child,” Lieber said. “Is it OK to whip a 1-year-old or a 6-month-old or a newborn?”

Actually, no. Which is why California already has some of the toughest child abuse laws in the country on its books. The question isn’t whether beating is OK, it’s whether spanking constitutes beating. And whether every parent who doesn’t think so belongs behind bars. Needless to say, even by California’s standards such an intrusion into the family structure would be unprecedented. State Senate Minority Leader Dick Ackerman declared, “I’m trying to pick a word other than ‘crazy.’ Let me see, ‘not well thought out?’ ”

“This punish-you-if-you-spank-your-children bill is intrusive, unenforceable, and the most blatant violation of parental rights I’ve ever seen,” said Randy Thomasson, president of the Sacramento, Calif.-based Campaign for Children and Families. “What’s next, jail time for parents who raise their voices at their children? We already have enough legitimate laws prohibiting physical abuse of children, and this proposal is certainly not one of them.

“This nonsensical bill injects the big nose of government into the family home, where it doesn’t belong,” Thomasson continued. “Some parents spank and some parents don’t, and that’s their right as parents. Government regulation of parents’ discipline wipes out the right of parents to raise their own children. This is wrong. God gave children to parents, not to the state.”

You’d think so, but Lieber evidently subscribes more to the “It Takes a Village” mentality — and she’s not the least bit shy about imposing her values, such as they are, on the whole village. “I have to question why our society holds so tightly to physical discipline among the very young,?” said Lieber — who, not surprisingly, has no children of her own. “We’re very addicted to violence.”

When informed that no other state had yet seen fit to constrain parental discipline, Lieber noted that, in earlier days, spousal abuse was also tolerated. Which only underscores just how convoluted her logic is on this subject.

Again, what Lieber claims she objects to — and what her law is intended to prevent — is beating a child. Which is already illegal. “But in this politically correct atmosphere,” writes Debra Saunders on Townhall.com, “do-gooders believe it is their right to pass laws that expand definitions beyond reason so that a spanking is a beating — when it isn’t.”

In effect, Saunders concludes, “This is what Lieber really is saying in proposing such a law: I know how to raise your kids, and I am going to make it illegal for other parents to discipline their children in a way I do not like. If you don’t do it my way, you can go to jail.”

That’s certainly one interpretation of Lieber’s behavior, but it’s a charitable one because it implies a certain misguided benevolence — as though she really did have the welfare of the children at heart and was simply confused about how best to protect them. A more cynical observer, however, would point out that criminalizing spanking — like requiring sex education in schools, legalizing gay marriage and the whole gamut of social engineering measures favored by Nanny-staters like Rep. Lieber — is just one more calculated attack on the family structure and an effort to replace it with government programs and bureaucracies.

Simply put, people like Lieber fall into two categories — those who don’t know how destructive their actions are and those who do but want to put them into force anyway because stripping you of your rights further empowers them. In either case, it’s not something you or I should stand for.

– Posted by Jeff Fairmont on January 21

OK, quick civics lesson. In the United States, as you may have heard, we have a republican form of government. Ours is a representative democracy in which the people elect public officials who then conduct the daily business of governing on their behalf. In a total of 26 U.S. states — mostly in the West — the people can also engage in a form of “direct democracy” by enacting laws through the initiative process. Or at least they could yesterday, but under the terms of a bill introduced this past week in the Washington State Legislature, the fundamental right of self-government in that state is under direct assault.

Actually, make that indirect assault since, as usual, the forces that want to roll back your rights are doing so under false colors.

According to Washington law, any registered voter is permitted to place an initiative on the regular election ballot and, if passed, the measure becomes state law. The catch is, before the issue can be put to a vote, its supporters must submit a petition signed by at least eight percent of the number of votes cast in the most recent election for governor. In Washington, that generally equates to something on the order of 200,000 signatures.

The requirement serves as safeguard to assure the ballot isn’t cluttered up with hundreds of frivolous initiatives pushed by fringe groups. Even so, two or three measures a year generally win enough support to go to the voters — a fact that galls the state’s lawmakers, who apparently believe the public that elected them to office should be rendered incapable of expressing its wishes on any other matter.

House Bill 1087 would accomplish that objective by imposing fines and possibly jail time on anyone convicted of paying for the signatures necessary to place an initiative before the state’s voters. Ironically, it’s being promoted by its sponsors as a way to fight fraud and corruption.

“The legislature,” the bill reads, “finds that paying workers based on the number of signatures obtained on an initiative or referendum petition increases the possibility of fraud in the signature gathering process. This practice may encourage the signature gatherer to misrepresent a ballot measure, to apply undue pressure on a person to sign a petition that the person is not qualified to sign, to encourage signing even if the person has previously signed, or to invite forgery.” (More.)

In fact, the only fraud here is the one being perpetrated on anyone who actually believes the line being peddled by the measure’s supporters.

“Right now,” explained the bill’s principal author, Rep. Sherry Appleton (D-Poulsbo) during a recent radio interview, “you pay the signature-gatherer $2.50 to $5.00 (per) signature, which is a lot of money … which, then, I think, opens up the avenue for fraudulent gathering of signatures. If you’re being paid $5 a signature and there are 30 signatures to a page, that’s $150.”

It isn’t the idea of paying the signature-gatherers that offends her, you understand. Her bill wouldn’t stop initiative sponsors from paying people an hourly wage to stand out in front of Wal-Mart with their petition. What Appleton objects to is paying a fee for each signature. This, she argues, creates an incentive to falsify signatures.

The truth is that paying by the signature rather than by the hour has the logical result of bringing in more signatures — and that’s what really frosts Appleton and all those who signed her bill. They’re OK with the initiative process as long as the signature-gatherers get paid for standing around doing nothing, but it becomes a problem when their compensation is tied to actual success.

In point of fact, the Washington Secretary of State is already required to verify every signature turned in to make sure each corresponds to a registered Washington state voter. If not, the signature is invalidated.

In short, the state already has a procedure for weeding out forged signatures when they occur. But Appleton’s bill, under the guise of preventing fraud, imposes a penalty before any crime is even committed. More to the point, it also has the effect of reducing the number of signatures gathered — and that’s no unintended consequence.

“The real reason (for the bill),” writes Washington state resident Stefan Shakansky on his Sound Politics blog, “is to make it harder for citizens to exercise the initiative power that is supposedly ‘reserved by the people.’”

As if your rights weren’t being eroded fast enough.

– Posted by Jeff Fairmont on January 19.