Phyrfight Intel

I have been reading On Liberty by John Stuart Mill over the past few months and have discovered that the man is infinitely quotable. He was an Englishman who wrote during the 1850s as if he were living today. I think that this quote exemplifies what is going on in many modern governments today:

Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.

Too many people today think they know what is best for the rest and attempt to force their lifestyles on all of us. If you don’t like what someone is doing ignore it, don’t pass laws to outlaw things that are minor disruptions.

The Obama administration has just announced an investigation in to CIA interrogations that may have violated the law. The president said repeatedly during his first month in office that he wanted to look forward not backward and all but ruled-out investigations of the type now under way. The administration is now content with CIA officials using only the Army Field Manual and nothing more while conducting interrogations. This is ridiculous because the Army Field manual was designed to be used by common soldiers when they had captured the enemy in the field. It was not intended to be used against the top echelon of al-Queda. I have concerns that the investigation will lead to a chilling effect that will sweep through the CIA causing most agents to consider what will happen to themselves if they do act, rather than what will happen to this country if they do not act.

Reason online has similar concerns.

This YouTube Video includes the audio from an LP released by the American Medical Association in 1961 to help put down a move toward socialized medicine.

Back in 1927, an American Socialist, Norman Thomas, 6-time candidate for President on the Socialist Party Ticket, said that the American people would never vote for socialism. But, he said, under the name of Liberalism, the American people will adopt every fragment of the socialist program.

From: WSJ

Next year’s census will determine the apportionment of House members and Electoral College votes for each state. To accomplish these vital constitutional purposes, the enumeration should count only citizens and persons who are legal, permanent residents. But it won’t.

Instead, the U.S. Census Bureau is set to count all persons physically present in the country—including large numbers who are here illegally. The result will unconstitutionally increase the number of representatives in some states and deprive some other states of their rightful political representation. Citizens of “loser” states should be outraged. Yet few are even aware of what’s going on.

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/07/eff-defends-wikipedi

Legal Analysis by Fred von Lohmann
As has been widely reported, the National Portrait Gallery of London (NPG) recently sent a legal threat to an American Wikipedian, Derrick Coetzee, over his posting approximately 3,000 photos of public domain paintings to Wikipedia. Because of the importance of this issue for the public domain and the Internet generally, EFF has taken Mr. Coetzee as a client.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” – CS Lewis   God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics