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Yes, since, at least, 1936.

Perhaps the best examples of the ideological conformity that the left is pushing in the US comes from college campuses, where conservative and libertarian speakers are often threatened or assaulted -- and where campus authorities sometimes cancel their speeches because of the heckler's vote and concerns about safety or security. There are plenty of others, but often more polished by experience in how to get away with things.

A good example of pervasive government is California's Proposition 65, which requires businesses to conspicuously notify consumers if there are any of a very long list of substances that are "known to the State of California to cause" cancer and/or birth defects in a product or place of business in California. The list currently includes things like aloe vera extract, aspirin, boric acid, caffeine, carbon monoxide *and* dioxide ... and I got tired after the letter 'C'. As a result, most products you can buy in the US have a Prop 65 warning -- which sometimes leads to confusion abroad when products intended for sale in the US make it to other countries. There are more burdensome and broader government regulations with equally unclear marginal benefits, but Prop 65 is easy to see as an excess.

While reasonable people might disagree about exactly what constitutes "pervasive" government, though, US "liberals" are in favor of a lot of government oversight to make sure companies aren't trying to cheat employees by doing things like making lunch breaks optional; they want to ensure education is run by government rather than by schools offering government-approved curricula tailored in ways that parents prefer; and so forth.

Actually, it is very common for employers to break labor laws. I have a lot of poor friends who are regularly shat on by employers. The employers figure the employees are too desperate or disorganized to sue, and most of the time, they are right.

This one is good. OK, not "good" really.

http://loweringthebar.net/2016...
" March 7, 2016

You may think you have a terrible boss, and you may be right. But you know what? Your boss isn’t the worst boss ever.

Unless your boss has pooped in your lunchbox...."

US elections were very different before TV. When voter made a decision based on mostly written information and the candidates actual policy positions

Care to provide any evidence that this is something more than a prelapsarian fantasy?

Anyone with a passing familiarity with the history of US Presidential elections knows that, after the first two (where no one really dared challenge the Washington hagiography), they've generally been pretty vile. It's conceivable that back in some Golden Age before Great Devil Television corrupted us, a majority of voters decided things based on "candidates [sic] actual policy positions", since it's difficult to prove otherwise, but it seems highly implausible. Certainly people at the time didn't seem to think that was the case, given the vast amount of invective and innuendo they spread.

(If you're not familiar with the history, Kevin Underhill has an entertaining summary.)

New media certainly make it easier and faster to spread misrepresentations and illogical arguments, but I've seen no credible historical arguments that anything beyond that has changed.

Sure - someone's going to worry about Maryland's $10 fine. That's basically a hall pass to screw around and pay the ticket.

Nobody's been convicted in Massachussetts in more than 30 years, so good luck with enforcing that law.

In South Carolina, it's only if you're living together with the other person IN South Carolina, or habitual sex with that other person. Hop over the border, a succession of one-night stands, etc., are all legal.

Florida requires it be the much higher standard of "in an open state of adultery." Casual discrete affairs are legal. And if they do decide that you were living in an open state of adultery, the maximum fine is $500, and the maximum jail sentence is 60 days. Seriously, nobody has been prosecuted since 2006, and there's enough case law that it won't happen again.

New York it's a crime, but only 13 people have been charged in the last 40 years, and you really have to work at it to get charged. Like the couple who were doing it on a picnic table in a park in broad daylight while kids were around..

It's not very often you have people engaging in sexual activity in a park in broad daylight," said Officer Eric Hill of the Batavia Police Department. And when you do, presumably there is usually a bush or bushes or some other type of ground cover involved. But the 29-year-old man and 41-year-old woman in this case chose a picnic table, upon which they could be seen by others who were enjoying the park in a more traditional way. Families with children were visiting the park at the time, and one of them called police, although there is no indication that anybody checked to see if either of the picnickers had a living spouse.

Nobody wants to look stupid wasting taxpayer money prosecuting people for adultery. The odds of finding a jury where nobody has committed adultery are pretty bad, which is why it's prosecuted as a misdemeanor, if it's prosecuted at all, in states where the accused doesn't have the right to a jury trial. Juries know that they could be in the same position, if they haven't already been.

Those states that still have these laws need to wake up and stop acting like the Christian Taliban, especially since those who scream the loudest about the lack of moral rectitude are the same ones who are caught with their pants down on grindr, etc.

But how will the TSA randomly decide who should go through different screening. Oh yeah, now I remember:

http://loweringthebar.net/2016...

I came here to post popehat. My legal blog recommendations:
* Popehat insightful/snarky legal commentary from someone who used to be a federal prosecutor and is now in private practice.
* Lowering the Bar: hilarious legal humor. Recent topics: Hulk Hogan, Donald Trump, drone law, argle-bargle.
*Papers, Please: Lots of TSA and similar topics. Their MO is to file expansive FOIA requests to intelligence and law enforcement agencies, then write stridently about how they were rejected.
* Jetsetting Terrorist: trials and tribulations of somebody erroneously on the do not fly list. (not updated often)
* Taking Sense Away: blog written by TSA employee (no longer updated, but fun to read the archives).
* SCOTUSblog: blow-by-blow news of goings-on at the supreme court. super nerdy.
* Supreme Court Haiku: summaries of supreme court decisions, in haiku form.
* Volokh Conspiracy: insightful pieces on constitutional law and similar topics. primarily conservative, primarily written by law profs.

wow, with all these things in my feedly, it's amazing I get any work done!

If you want to arrive unmolested you might try not taking part in an ongoing criminal conspiracy

Bullshit.

TSA et al have done the exact same thing with the laptops of people who aren't suspected of any criminal activity. And even if they are suspected of criminal activity, they're still entitled to due process.

What you're saying is "you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide".

Have we actually reached the point where people are willing to accept fascists bypassing the law to make their lives easier? Or bullshit searches defended by the notion that innocent people have nothing to fear?

Because what yo're saying is "a little fascism is OK if we think they're bad guys". Fuck that.

This was not a random search without basis or probable cause.

Then get a fucking warrant . Bypassing legal obligations because you think you can game the system and get the TSA to do it for you means you should lose your fucking job.

It's bloody well time law enforcement was actually penalized when they do crap like this. And parallel construction should be grounds for criminal perjury charges.

None of this "oh we had to lie to get a conviction and keep our sources secret". Because that's a crock of shit.

If there's a judge around they probably could get a warrant for just about anything... seriously, you might look like you're "clenching your buttocks" or something, and apparently that's enough for a 14 hour full cavity search. (And, not mentioned in this link but elsewhere, same case, then the hospital sent him something like a $6K bill for it. God Bless Amerika, Sieg Heil!!!)

a couple thoughts...
3) maybe this is a woosh on my part, but the GP refers to TSA nut grabbing. This was just in the news yesterday cuz there was a bust at denver where a gay tsa officer was using coded signals to other officers so he would ahve the chance to grope people's nuts.

The TSA in Denver were only groping attactive people....

a couple thoughts...
1) this guy is a nut. the fact that he is a post man and shows up with 535 *stamped* letters is super funny.
2) gyrocopters are inherently funny. those things don't fly so much as fall through the air and manage not to crash. they remind me of bumblebees.
3) maybe this is a woosh on my part, but the GP refers to TSA nut grabbing. This was just in the news yesterday cuz there was a bust at denver where a gay tsa officer was using coded signals to other officers so he would ahve the chance to grope people's nuts.

Having a Nobel prize isn't as much fun as you might think. For example, the TSA will hassle you when you fly:

http://www.loweringthebar.net/...

On the other hand, you do get reserved parking at Berkeley:

http://www.npr.org/templates/s...

There is one notable discontinuity in the returns to scale on corruption: If the entity being corrupted is relatively small and can evade wider attention, corruption can simply swallow the whole thing and stop bothering with hiding.

The Hampton, FL, for instance, is less of a town with a corrupt police department, and more of a corrupt police department with some residents. You know you have a problem if the Florida legislature decides that your town is too corrupt to survive and goes about abolishing it...

Teneha, TX operated a similar racket using 'asset forfeiture' laws rather than speeding tickets.

If you approach the task of corruption as that of being a small abcess hiding in a larger, more or less healthy, body, bigger is better. Even if the absolute level of corruption doesn't increase, more cash flowing around makes skimming a percent here and a percent there more worth the time and trouble. However, if you want to go all out, and achieve epic levels (per capita) of corruption, tiny insular shitholes with low risks of outside interference are a very competitive option.

That's why it makes sense to slash funding and revoke our consent to be governed.

you mean like declaring yourself a sovereign citizen? doesn't work too well.

Actually, it seems that the judges couldn't do anything -- in the end they had to actually have police stake out his house in order to get any kind of submissible evidence.

2) reliable paternity testing,

there's actually no reason for any kind of marriage.

Paternity testing is reliable within limits. There are multiple cases where one woman has had sex with identical twins and paternity tests can't resolve the situation.

Actually....Kentucky may disagree

This just goes to show how much of a buzzword "drone" has become. The average American fears drones. Why? Because that's what he sees on TV doing all these horrible things. This has become so ingrained that any drone is instantly a boogeyman.

The problem is that the govt is spying on its own people and blowing them up without trials. How they do these things doesn't really matter. The fact that they think it's perfectly OK and don't plan on stopping anytime soon is the problem.

So now anything that blows up is automatically a weapon? I hope their school buses don't run on gas or diesel engines, then they would have to charge all the bus drivers with bringing weapons to school every day.

This is almost as stupid as suspending a 7 year old for having a pastry that's vaguely gun-shaped.
http://www.loweringthebar.net/2013/03/pastry-gun.html

There is still a valid law in England which says you have to practice archery weekly.

False

In 1845, "An Act to Amend the Law concerning Games and Wagers" repealed any part of King Henry’s 1541 law making any “Game of Skill” unlawful or “which enacts any Penalty for lacking Bows or Arrows . . . or which regulates the making, selling, or using of Bows and Arrows . . . .” 8 & 9 Vict., c.109 (1845); see also Statute Law Revision Act, 26 & 27 Vict. c.125 (1863) (repealing the 1511 law)

Skip to the third to last paragraph here, just under the map of Italy. Hilarious.

We’re talking about Australia, where back in 2008 a couple was served with a lawsuit via facebook under similar circumstances.

Really, though, serving a restraining order via facebook actually makes a bit more sense than the lawsuit even did... if the bullying is occurring via facebook, the person being harassed might not even know who the bully is, but if the court is able to legally order the bully to quit, it makes sense to do so via facebook.

The number is pulled out of a hat, and has no bearing on what you'd receive if you actually win.

For example, Dalton Chiscolm sued Bank of America in August for "1,784 billion, trillion dollars." over bad customer service. The case is still pending, as the judge gave him some time to adjust his filing to something more in lines with LESS money than exists in the world.