America’s no-speech precedent.
Posted on December 9, 2009, under news.
According to the 1st amendment to the constitution, Free speech in america is protected. Fact.
Except when talking about politics near an election day, except when talking about copy protection techniques, and now except when talking about online gambling in washington state. Where one of the first battles under the flag of this washington bill, is involving someone who was not actually gambling, but merely talking about it.
Every day, the protected free speech of the first amendment is seeming a little more like fantasy. Between the DMCA, the industries trying to legislate their place in our culture, and bills similar to this one, it’s no wonder that businesses are moving out of the country and american individuals are trying to maintain their freedoms by moving their ideas outside our borders. So is that what america coming too? You can do what you want, as long as you don’t do it here?
*4/706/13*
Carnival of Liberty 50
The weekly compilation of articles on the topic of Life, Liberty and Property. This week is the 50th Carnival of Liberty, and I felt the most appropriate theme would be ‘Fifty’ itself in all it’s glory and permutations. Or what I could come up with, at least.
So the obvious place to start is the black birthday. Or, to steal a line from the Great Dark Horde, “You have reached the age you are, your demise can not be far”. Articles on the pessimistic side.
Ogre at Ogre’s Politics and Views shows in NC House Bill 2213 how one man can hold basic rights away from the citizens.
Matt Johnston at Going to the Mat presents Endorsement by School Newspaper Is Questioned. I thinks somebody’s sense of proportion died, in this case.
Steve Faber rings the alarm with The AMT – If You’re Not Scared, You Damn Well Should Be! posted at Debt Free.
“Next time you go to your doctor, know that his or her membership organization is prescribing coercion as a fix for America’s medical ills.” In American Medical Coercion, Revisited posted at MedicaLiberty.
My henchman Matt has a post about America’s no-speech precedent, where he lists a few of the current exceptions to ‘free’ speech.
NStalker at Pragmatic Speak, has You Can’t Legislate Personal Responsibility – But They Try and Try with a follow-up article, More On Personal Responsibility – The KFC Thing
TKC at The Pubcrawler looks at a recent Supreme Court decision and asks “And what of private property rights?”
Lisa at The London Fog cries out against excesses with So much for the checks and balances in our fine democracy.
Next is the realm of the ‘Five-Oh’, where police powers and legal questions are discussed.
Doug Mataconis at Below The Beltway points out wrong-headed posturing in the Senate in The Flag And Freedom
Mapmaster at The London Fog points out a well greased slope with First they came for the vending machines…, while his fellow Londoner, Lisa, appears again describing problems with hate crime legislation in Diversity Discriminates While Government Dictates
As we travel from ‘You can’t say that’ to ‘You must say this’, Matt Barr at New World Man presents We’re all pro-choice here!
Richard G. Combs at Combs Spouts Off presents one more in a long, long list with Ho, hum — more airport security madness
To illustrate that the only thing keeping us safe from the encroaching police state is their own sheer incompetence, Michael Hampton at Homeland Stupidity presents The Keystone Stasi
And of course, the concept of 50/50 leads us to issues of compromise solutions and mixing separate things to achieve something new and different.
The latest new and different critter is discussed by Boxing Alcibiades at Happycrow’s Eyeball Factory in his Libertarian Democrats and the Equality Imperative.
Don Surber at Don Surber identifies a compromise not worth making with Fat tax doesn’t work. A highlight: “We just happen to have a soft drinks tax in West Virginia that covers those sugary drinks. Have had it since 1951. And after 55 years of this nanny tax, West Virginia ranks third in adult obesity and third in adult diabetes.”
A delicious irony served up as “Public institutions will always need a private safety net to catch those who fall through the cracks of the public system” by Michael Hampton at Homeland Stupidity where his Reality-based education describes a reality where “the public schools are dismal failures, especially with severely disabled children, and the private schools are picking up the slack”.
Jon Swift at Jon Swift presents Guantanamo: Kafkaesque, in a Good Way
John posts Hating America at hell’s handmaiden, with the question “How in the hell is protest anti-American?”.
Lonnie Hodge gives us China’s Spyware: The New Manchurian Candidate may be You posted at One Man Bandwidth.
Jack Yoest proposes a modest compromise with Kill Big Bird, Buy a Raptor posted at Jack Yoest. After all, “There’s a war on. It’s been in all the papers. And we all have to pay for it. Sacrifice somewhere.”
Finally, we harken back to the 1950′s for an era of optimism in culture and technology, with articles in a more positive vein.
Brad Warbiany of The Unrepentant Individual, seeing that Brinkmanship Ebbs between China and Taiwan, is cautiously optimistic about their future.
Dana at Principled Discovery keeps us thinking about history (circa 50 AD) with Liberty, the Roman System of Acquired Privilege
The reading of Hudson v. Michigan and the Constitution over at Liberty Corner is that “Contrary to libertarian orthodoxy, the Supreme Court’s decision in Hudson v. Michigan serves liberty and is consistent with the original meaning of the Constitution.”
While it might be a bit tangential to the Carnival, I love a good discussion of the source of Rights. Francois Tremblay gives the case for Why Anarchy is Most Conductive to Natural Rights (part 1) posted at The Radical Libertarian. IndianCowboy answers with Why Anarchy Isn’t A Satisfactory Protector of Natural Rights, Part I posted at OK so I’m not really a cowboy, as the two continue a running conversation.
Also tangential, but interesting, is Rick Sincere’s My Lunch with Dick Cheney posted at Rick Sincere News and Thoughts.
Michael McCullough at Stingray: a blog for salty Christians presents Al Gore and some inconvenient truths about global warming, and gives several reasons why the demon technology is really just a whipping boy.
Tom Hanna at Tom Rants spreads the underreported optimistic news of Federal Deficit Dropping Without Tax Increases or Spending Cuts
And finally, apropos of nothing I know of, NStalker asks, “NASCAR And O’Canada?”
And that’s the carnival for this week. Next week, the 51st Carnival of Liberty will be at Below The Beltway.
*3/706/13*
A New Direction, an Old Message
Posted on December 9, 2009, under National Politics.
The Democrats have A New Direction which has some people comparing it with the Contract With America. I don’t think the two can be properly compared.
The Contract included (mostly) concrete and verifiable promises. You knew up front what you were going to get. The New Direction includes (mostly) fuzzy platitudes and indefinite statements. The two are nowhere near the same thing, except perhaps that the Democrats are hoping for the same energy as the Contract generated for House Republicans.
I don’t think it will. It’s just a restatement of the same old Fascist/Socialist nonsense that Democrats have always presented, and betrays total ignorance of the most basic concepts of economics.
Make Health Care More Affordable: Fix the prescription drug program by putting people ahead of drug companies and HMO’s, eliminating wasteful subsidies, negotiating lower drug prices and ensuring the program works for all seniors; invest in stem cell and other medical research.
The only things really solid here are reducing the incentives for private drug development, no means testing of benefits, and more government money for basic research that nobody will turn into drugs because it won’t pay. The rest is fuzzy.
Lower Gas Prices and Achieve Energy Independence: Crack down on price gouging; eliminate billions in subsidies for oil and gas companies and use the savings to provide consumer relief and develop American alternatives, including biofuels; promote energy efficient technology.
Ignoring the facts that reducing gas prices makes energy independence harder and less valuable, that significant price gouging doesn’t exist, that consumer ‘energy rebates’ have already died once, that biofuels are just more billions in subsidies, and that energy efficiency is already promoted by it’s cost savings, this still has no direct statement of how they intend to do these things. More touchy-feely, no real plan.
Help Working Families: Raise the minimum wage; repeal tax giveaways that encourage companies to move jobs overseas.
Increase the cost of most low-end and union labor, and companies won’t need tax incentives to seek out lower cost foreign labor. Do Democrats even know what percentage of working families have the primary wage-earner in a minimum wage job? This is just more pandering to unions.
Cut College Costs: Make college tuition deductible from taxes; expand Pell grants and slash student loan costs.
Let’s see, the supply of college diplomas is fixed, primarily by government regulation preventing new competition. So they’re going to lower costs by subsidizing demand, and for some reason they don’t expect prices to rise to a new equalibrium point. I call that dreaming in a teenager, and irresponsibly stupid in a lawmaker. College tuition costs will go down only when either fewer people want to go to college, or when more colleges are available. Nothing else will do it.
Ensure Dignified Retirement: Prevent the privatization of Social Security; expand savings incentives; and ensure pension fairness.
Because having more money if you invest smarter is undignified, because people really should want to put after-tax money into things like CD’s where they can earn less than inflation AND pay taxes on what they earn, and because nationalizing all corporate pensions so they can be managed just like the Social Security Administration is an obviously good idea. Yeah, making 100% of retirees dependant on the government is the way to give them dignity.
Require Fiscal Responsibility: Restore the budget discipline of the 1990s that helped eliminate deficits and spur record economic growth.
The discipline that the Democratic party fought so hard against? That they demonized? That they claimed would starve seniors and turn the poor out onto the streets? I should trust them after that kind of rhetoric against discipline, when they now claim to embrace it? Why? Did they ever say they were wrong?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m in favor of eliminating subsidies and reducing protectionism. But everything here that says ‘eliminate subsidy’ is directly followed with ‘and spend the money on’ something else. So all they give me is that the Democrats will subsidize something else. That’s not progress in my direction.
This entire wish list relies on people either being completely ignorant of the economic consequences of these actions, or being willing to read into the statements what they want to hear, rather than what the Democrats have said.
This list points up that the Democrats really have swallowed the ‘Positive Rights’ kool-aid. Since there is no such thing as positive rights that do not rest on a violation of natural ‘Negative Rights’, I still have to believe that a Libertarian Democrat is a contradiction in terms. This list reinforces that opinion.
via The QandO Blog
*2/706/13*
“The fall of content’s kingdom”
This is probably the best description of the woes that the media providers (movie and music advocates are a large chunk of those providers) are experiencing, in relationship to their customers and piracy. It’s long and seems to repeat itself a few times, but I think it’s a great read
*21/706/13*
CAN ST JOHN’S WORT WORK AT FIRST AND THEN STOP WORKING? WHAT SHOULD I DO IF THAT HAPPENS?
Posted on December 9, 2009, under Anti Depressants-Sleeping Aid.
It is not uncommon for an anti-depressant that works initially to stop working after a period, which may range from weeks to years. St John’s Wort is no exception in this regard and depressive symptoms may recur after an initial response. A relapse of this kind may be due to a worsening of the depression, which is sometimes the result of a definable cause such as a personal loss, a new stress or the onset of winter. Wherever possible, the first-line response to such a setback is to deal with the underlying cause, for example to obtain extra support from friends and family, adopt strategies to help deal with the stress or increase the amount of environmental light.
If the trigger for relapse cannot be identified or if the steps to correct it by making environmental changes are unsuccessful, medication adjustments can be made, including increasing the dosage of St John’s Wort or adding another anti-depressant. Sometimes a person develops what is known as tolerance to an antidepressant, which means that certain chemical changes in the brain override the beneficial effects of the medication. In this case it can pay to switch to another medication or to add a medication specifically designed to potentiate the effects of the anti-depressant. Drugs such as lithium carbonate and synthetic thyroid hormone have been reported to be effective potentiators of conventional anti-depressants and may be of value when added to St John’s Wort as well. If the medication situation is complicated enough to warrant potentiation of an anti-depressant, it is certainly necessary for a highly skilled doctor to be involved in treatment decisions. The purpose of providing you with this information is so that you can understand some of the steps your doctor is likely to consider in dealing with the delayed development of unresponsiveness to an anti-depressant.
One possible reason why St John’s Wort may stop working is that the composition of active ingredients may vary from one batch of St John’s Wort to another. You might suspect this to be the case if you purchased a new batch of St John’s Wort just before noticing the change in anti-depressant effect. Reliability of quality control is one reason why I recommend the brand of St John’s Wort with the best documented and most reliable track record, namely Kira™, so as to minimize the likelihood of relapses due to inconsistencies between batches.
*95/75/2*
ALLERGIES: COPING WITH THE MODERN ENVIRONMENT
In previous sections, we have looked at the basic concept of clinical ecology and at the different stages and symptoms which environmentally caused disease can engender. In this section, I shall explain in more detail some of the techniques which advocates of this new approach have devised to cope with the ecologic disaster of the twentieth century.
The first problem is one of diagnosis. Conventional medicine recognizes the fact that millions of people are chronically ill and that it can offer little for their arthritis, or migraine, or fatigue, or depression but chemically derived pills. Patients with a welter of confusing symptoms are often treated contemptuously, because the underlying cause of their many illnesses goes unnoticed. By its very nature, the etiology of environmentally caused chronic disease is hidden: this is “nature’s medical coverup.” The first job of the clinical ecologist is to cut through the confusion and demonstrate the underlying causes with convincing tests.
Over a period of about fifty years, clinical ecologists have worked out procedures which differ from those used by conventional doctors. Even the history-taking interview is different. I practice “poker-faced medicine,” in that I do not pass judgment on a patient’s symptoms upon first hearing them, no matter how bizarre they may seem. Many such symptoms later turn out to have significance in the patient’s medical history. A chemical questionnaire, which is included in Chapter 19, evolved through many editions and helps reveal a patient’s susceptibility. The reader can take this test himself and get a preliminary idea of his own degree of sensitivity to chemicals.
Treatment by the methods of clinical ecology is safe, inexpensive, and effective. It is based, primarily, on avoidance of those environmental agents which cause trouble. The Rotary Diversified Diet (described in Chap. 18) works well for all types of food allergies and can help those who wish to diagnose their food allergies, as well as those who wish to avoid their development.
The treatment of chemical susceptibility is also largely based on avoidance. A number of simple and inexpensive procedures are described which can help protect the many people who suffer unknowingly from chemical-related problems.
Taken together, the chapters in this section can help any reader to become more aware of his own highly personalized reaction to common foods and chemicals and to begin to take simple steps to deal with a growing problem.
*90/110/2*
CASE STUDY: DEPRESSION AND OBESITY
A similar, but much more serious case was presented by Eleanor Wyckham, an overweight middle-aged woman. Two years before entering the Ecology Unit, Mrs. Wyckham had been hospitalized for depression. She had attempted suicide twice and had been given electroshock therapy. In her case, the treatment was ineffective and caused some memory loss.
Mrs. Wyckham was one of those patients who was aware that her problems stemmed in part from food. “I’ve reached the point where I am afraid to eat any longer,” she said, before entering the Ecology Unit. “Once I start eating, I feel as if I simply cannot stop.” She alternated between binges of eating and fasts or all-fruit diets. Her favorite food in the world, she said, was peanut butter—this was the one item she could not do without. She also loved bread, baked goods, and in fact anything with wheat in it. She had eaten wheat addictively since childhood, when her mother, who was interested in nutrition, became convinced of the virtues of whole wheat bread. She therefore plied her daughter with large amounts of this staple. Mrs. Wyckham, who had a family history of alcoholism, likened herself to an alcoholic, too—in her craving for bread and peanut butter.
She entered the hospital in a very depressed state. After five days of fasting, she was much less depressed. Not surprisingly, in her food test she had a severe reaction to peanuts (as well as to lamb). More unexpected was the fact that she passed the wheat test with no trouble—which shows that food allergies cannot always be pinpointed on the basis of histories or “hunches.” She did have moderate reactions to yeast and milk, however, which are often components of bread.
Mrs. Wyckham was then retested on some of the foods to which she had had no adverse reaction, but this time to foods which had been purchased in a commercial market. There was a definite increase in her depression, after a few such meals. Through the avoidance of incriminated foods, Mrs. Wyckham was able to control both her depression and her weight problem. This points to the fact that the Rotary Diversified Diet (Chap. 18), although not specifically designed as a weight-loss diet, can be helpful in that regard for the overweight patient.
The patients described in the preceding cases appear to have become sicker gradually, after a long period of cumulative exposure to chemicals and foods. Sometimes, however, a preexisting condition is suddenly made much worse by a massive exposure to an allergy-causing substance.
*88/110/2*
ANXIETY DISORDERS/WORKING THROUGH THE RECOVERY: OUR THRESHOLD TO STRESS
Posted on December 9, 2009, under Anti Depressants-Sleeping Aid.
The working-through process may at first seem difficult and confusing, but it isn’t. Some people can feel daunted and overwhelmed by the amount of effort needed. It is worth it. Everything which is required from us during the working-through process will be given back to us in the sheer joy and total freedom of recovery.
The working-through process is the same for everyone. The only difference is our personal threshold to stress. Some people may have reached the point where they cannot tolerate even the smallest stress. Other people may have a higher threshold to stress, but it is still low enough to trigger fearful thoughts.
The time it takes people to recover will vary. The individual threshold to stress comes into account, but the amount of effort and discipline we put into our recovery is most important.
The first attack was the result of either a build-up of stress or a major life stress. In other words, the anxiety and/or attack happened when we reached the limit of our individual threshold to stress. This doesn’t mean we are weak. It simply means we have reached our limit to stress, just as most people will reach their limit to stress at one point or other in their life. Continual worry about the symptoms of anxiety and attacks only increases our stress and lowers our threshold to it.
If our threshold to stress is now extremely low we may not be able to tolerate even the smallest daily stress. Our threshold to stress would be zero, while our anxiety level would be ten. At level five we would be able to tolerate the daily stress/es, but would find our anxiety level rising if there is a break in our normal daily routine. At level ten we would be able to deal with almost any stress without becoming anxious.
The working-through process means working to increase our threshold to stress back to normal levels, while decreasing our anxiety level.
It’s no use just hearing or reading about panic anxiety management skills. We have to practise them. There have been occasions when we say we’re not getting any better, and nothing has changed. If we are not getting results it usually means we are not practising enough, or even not practising at all!
*85/94/8*
CASE STUDY: PHYSICAL FATIGUE
Rudolph Garvin was a college student, the son of a physician, who wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps. His prospects were dim because of his failing grades. For many years he had suffered from minus-one symptoms, such as rhinitis. He had repeatedly been examined for sinus infections, but none could be found. He also suffered from repeated “colds.”
When he entered college, his localized minus-one symptoms gave way to systemic minus-two symptoms: headaches and bouts of extreme tiredness. These would generally come on around 3 p.m. Tiredness and head pain interfered with his ability to study, concentrate, or perform his tasks. He had to try to sneak in some studying before the head-pain problems became too distracting.
Inexplicably, his fatigue fluctuated and was much worse on certain days. In general, his tiredness was associated with bouts of nervousness, tension, and feelings of frustration. He also experienced brain-fag, characterized by impaired reading comprehension and unretentive memory. For instance, he would read his assignment the night before a class but would be unable to remember what he had read the next day. When he first came for ecologic management, his afternoon fatigue had spread to the morning as well. Even after sleeping for eight or nine hours, he awakened tired. Like many such patients, his sleep was restless.
In office tests, two glasses of milk brought on a headache and a feeling of extreme fatigue. He had to lie down until he was able to return home. This was accompanied by stomach upset.
After eating eggs, on another occasion, he suffered a headache after forty minutes. Milk and eggs were daily foods in his diet. He was therefore taken off these items, as well as beef and peanuts, which were both suspected on the basis of his history. After two weeks on the diet, he reported feeling much less tired. He was then instructed to return beef to his diet for three days, followed by peanuts. His headache and fatigue did not reappear. The return of dairy products and eggs, however, was accompanied by a return of his physical fatigue and pain. By eliminating these foods from his diet in all their forms, he recovered his health. After a while, he was able to reintroduce these foods into his diet according to the principles of the Rotary Diversified Diet. His grades improved, and he was admitted to medical school. Today he is a successful physician.
*79/110/2*
VISUALISATION THERAPY
Posted on December 9, 2009, under General health.
The use of visualisation techniques has played a part in treating disease from early times and in therapies from all over the world. The technique has been ‘rediscovered’ in recent times and is often used in conjunction with a number of other therapies to aid the natural healing process as well as to create a positive self-image.
During the 1920s Edmund Jacobson observed that a subject visualising himself running experienced involuntary twitches in the muscles of his legs. The link between mind and body was used by a Texan oncologist, Carl Simonton, and his wife Stephanie, to develop a treatment for cancer patients based on visualisation. Dr Simonton first tried out his treatment on a 61-year-old man with extensive throat cancer who could not eat and had lost an enormous amount of weight. The man agreed to co-operate in his own treatment by relaxing three times a day, mentally picturing his disease and an army of white blood cells attacking and overcoming the cancer cells. He also visualised his radiation therapy and the interaction of his body with the treatment. Within two weeks the man was rapidly gaining weight and his cancer had diminished noticeably. He continued his radiation therapy and was able to go fishing every day while undergoing it. Visualising himself as well, with a bright future, the patient was able to overcome the morbid depression which often characterises advanced cancer patients. He went on to get over arthritis, from which he had suffered for many years, and to become sexually active, after 20 years of impotence. His cancer remained completely in remission.
Visualisation therapy is now a popular alternative treatment which is used alongside more orthodox treatments for cancer. It is also used to treat a variety of other conditions. Resistance to illness in old age is believed to be enhanced by visualisations of a future in which you are healthy, happy, loving and hopeful. Asthma, heart disorders and phobias are also believed to be responsive to visualisation techniques, and some people have found it an effective technique for pain relief. Breathing and relaxation exercises are often enhanced by the use of visualisation.
This technique is taught and used by a range of different practitioners, including psychotherapists, hypnotherapists and sometimes by doctors, but you will have to rely on a personal referral to find a therapist.
*75/69/2*