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Policing Porn Isn't Part of The Job
Rick Zeman wrote to mention a Washington Post article about an incident at a Bethesda library. Two uniformed men from a Homeland Security detachment made an announcement stating that pornography was not acceptable viewing at the library. They then questioned a patron's choice of reading material. From the article: "A librarian intervened, and the two men went into the library's work area to discuss the matter. A police officer arrived. In the end, no one had to step outside except the uniformed men. They were officers of the security division of Montgomery County's Homeland Security Department, an unarmed force that patrols about 300 county buildings -- but is not responsible for enforcing obscenity laws."
Where have I seen this before... /me tries to remember... uniformed men, telling the civilian populace what is acceptable viewing, and what is not.
Sweet god, people, how far does this farce have to run before you realise that the "threat" that Homeland Security was set-up to combat is *you*?
I agree that the public library is *NOT* the place to be doing one's pr0n surfing, HOWEVER, I'm more than a little concerned that the dept. of homeland insecurity folks have taken it upon themselves to assume the role of nanny. I would say the DHS folks went WAY beyond their jurisdiction here. In an actionable sense, if you get my drift. Two thumbs way down.
Today is a good day to code.
A lot of people have been saying for a long time that "homeland security", the PAT-RIOT act and the war on terror were just codewords for more government interference in people's daily lives. So now pornography is a homeland security issue?
Various conservative factions first gained power at the local government level and leveraged that power to take control nationally. Between RICO and PATRIOT and executive orders authorizing surveillance, the federal government certainly has the capability of being just as interfering as these Montgomery County officials.
I'm starting to feel like that corny old poem about first they came for the Jews, then the homosexuals and I never spoke up. In the case of the U.S. it's already progressing from the terrorists to Muslims in general, non-violent political agitators, and now pornography viewers.
When will the "small-government" conservatives put their votes where there brains are? A "wasted" vote for the libertarian party would demonstrate commitment to their principles and send the major parties a message.
We are the 198 proof..
People shouldn't look at porn in public libraries -- at least, not where there's a significant chance of it disturbing other patrons, including children.
That idea is not incompatible with the view that the federal government has no place policing this. It's not hypocritical to say that something is bad while also thinking the government shouldn't police it.
But please, people, a $50 computer and a $10-a-month dial-up connection will get you all the porn you want at your house. Stop making this an issue.
xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
I am a registered Republican (lesser of two evils, etc.).
So now we have our own versions of the Muslim world's "Morality Police"?
The main problem I have with the GOP is this damn puritanism. This is the 21st century, dammit! If we force our views (actually their views, not mine. I have TB's of pr0n) on others, how are we better than the damn Islamist's?
The GOP is liable to take it up the ass big time in November. Hopefully this will clear out some of the ancient old farts so we can later elect younger pols with more of a Libertarian bent.
But I'm not holding my breath...
Cheers to the librarian who had the guts to stand up to defend the rights of the people.
As the article mentions, the library system in that county includes privacy screens so that people can view whatever they want without disturbing anyone else. A very reasonable alternative to blocking sites based on content.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
Indeed... there is not much difference between one form of religious nut and other.. in both cases those people try to force their views on others..
and overreacting.
Two officers did something that stepped over their job description. The situation was handled by superiors. I know it is vogue on Slashdot to "rail against the man", but "the man" dealt with the situation.
So now, we can get back to our God given right to wack off in public.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
lesser of two evils, etc.
These situations will not improve until people learn to count higher than two.
The article states nothing about these employees actually trying to enforce Homeland Security regulatinos, they were clearly speaking on their own behalf. This was irresponsible, as they were in uniform and on duty. Keep on mind that they were also part of a subsidiary of the DHS. This is the same thing as if a fey Marines still in uniform did the same thing. It isn't Department of Defense policy to enforce indecency, but that doesn't mean they can keep every one of their thousands of employees from doing this kind of thing out of personal ignorance. Homeland Security is only focused on the safety of people, look at their site and look into their operations(http://www.dhs.gov./ They are not investigators, they are not crime stoppers, those guards were sent there to patrol and they stepped out of bounds. Look into the matter more and you can be sure they got in trouble for this irresponsible move on their part. Some people just are not aware that playboy is available at the library for its articles. If this mess was actually caused by a Homeland Security rule, I would say it might be a big deal, but clearly it had NOTHING to do with them except for that two employees stepped out of bounds while in uniform, and they need to be reprimanded.
Most christians or muslism are not that hardline, but seems that the hardliners do have way too much media publicity.
When people are standing in the libraries monitoring what we read, the terrorist have won.
They haven't killed any more people, but they've killed what makes America, America. Our freedom.
.
The library is EXACTLY the place. There are many reasons for looking at "porn" besides getting off. If it was being done in a library, from a book specifically bought in for its value, then the chances are that this "porn" was actually quite historically, culturally or socially important, and that a lot was being learned from it. I for one am very thankful that the library prevailed in this instance.
The (Christian) "religious nuts" to which the GP refers don't recognise separation of church and state, either.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Obscenity is defined at the local level, and that's fine. And those in many Alabama counties are the most clearly defined and stringent on the books. This degree of state- and local intregity in the make-up of quality-of-life legislation was everything that the Founding Fathers were about. Today, the fine folks of West Hollywood don't have to play by Salt Lake City's mores, and vice-versa. My bet is that the people of Montgomery don't want what they have defined locally as obscene being viewed within the locally run and funded Public Library. The fact that the enforcement is via local DHS dudes muddies the waters, unfortunately, but it doesn't change the fact the locals don't want teh pr0n in the public facilities. The satellite distributors use zipcode masking in their signal encryption to prevent distribution where it's illegal -- they 'get' it. The Internet distributors are about 15 years behind the times, unfortunately.
I'm always amused by how many people who clamor for a local principality's 'right' to perform gay marriages get their panties in a bunch when another local principality flexes its muscles to enforce their 'right' to ban what they consider obscene. Two sides of the same coin: suck it up.
"in both cases those people try to force their views on others.."
There are some people in EVERY community that try to force their views on others. Some Islamic people do it. Some Christian people do it. You get in from Republicans, you get it from Democrats. You get it from straight people, you get it from gay people. You get it from Conservatives, you get it from liberals.
Notice I said "some" not "all".
The problem comes in when people are utterly convinced they're right, and the other side are evil for not believing that opinion.
Demonizing the other side is not right, and will get us no where.
"Hoever, I get so damn tired of being told what rights others have, when it comes out of my pocket."
But it's OK when the rights you enjoy come out of others pockets? You, sir, or madam, frighten me.
Virtually all of the rights we enjoy are, in one way or another, out of the public's pockets. We pay for a military, and (supposedly) law enforcement to, among other things, defend those rights.
Democracy and Freedom are not easy, nor for the faint of heart. These concepts demand that you value those concepts to the extent that the guy next door, whose opinions and tastes and religion you absolutely despise, is worth your defending his rights. This may include his right to condemn your favorite candidate, his right to burn the flag we love in protest, and his right to have access to materials in a public media forum that you don't agree with.
I promise you, there are church ladies out there who are angry that they have to pay for your right to look at 14th-century Italian painters at your library - because there might be pictures of naked chubby girls in there. They resent having to pay for your right to view this trash. Ridiculous? How, exactly, are you any different?
Because, believe me - Your neighbor that you despise may not agree with what you have to say, believe, or have access to in your library either. The very essence of the core of our government, that we all pay lip service to, but let slip away when it gets tough, is the concept of inalienable rights. I can't take your rights - and you can't take mine. And we each have to pay a little for that priviledge.
Then you've no right to read religious literature, sci-fi, classics, non-fiction, browse slashdot or check your email at the library using public taxes either. If you get to prohibt someone from browsing porn, shouldn't they get to prohibit you from doing your favourite library activity too? Maybe they really don't like the idea of their taxes being used to supply you with access to 'The Satanic Verses' or 'The Communist Manifesto', and would much rather you paid for those activities out of your own pocket and conducted them at home, where children wouldn't be corrupted by your religious or political interests.
I suspect you'd like it a lot less, being told what rights you don't have, than hearing about what rights they do have.
Defending American values? Well, sheesh. Isn't more than half of the world's porn made in America? Playboy, anybody?
Sounds to me like Bush's stiffs are more interested in re-defining American values rather than in defending the existing ones. Not like "American Values," which seem to include destroying budding democracies and economies around the world by funding evil men like Saddam, and maintaining one of the lowest standards of living in the world's industrialized nations, the shortest number of holidays, largest number of work hours, largest percentage of starving, homeless and illiterate. . . Golly! Let's defend that!
But with some spiffy re-defining and defending of New American Values, why in 50 years, (if there's still a U.S. around in 50 years when the radioactive dust settles and Bush's babies crawl from their luxurious underground retreats), Americans may well be making the best automobiles, watches and repressed sexuality fetish porn in the world, and be putting all their verbs at the end of the sentence where they damned well belong!
Anyway, what exactly does stamping out porn have to do with stopping 'terrorists' blowing up buildings? Heck, Islamic Extremist groups don't like porn either. They say it's a moral corruption. So wouldn't they approve of this latest move by Bush's stiffs?
It's all nuts. None of it makes sense except when viewed through the spyglass of fascism.
I'm sure people laughed at the brownshirts too. Don't give them an inch.
-FL
Democrats need to learn that while the constitution does protect your speech, it does not protect your feelings.
Where did you get such a backwards view of things?
"Is the real problem the law, homeland security or just the people in the position?"
The real problem, in my immodest opinion is the people of the U.S. who have no sense of history. The creation of secretive (how many agents are there - what exactly do they do?) police agencies, with broad-reaching, and vaguely defined powers has, historically, never been a good thing for the populace. I repeat, never.
This is not about a couple of bad eggs. Their abuse of power is not at all inconsistant with the framework they operate in. They are not the disease - they are a symptom of the disease and are by no means unique.
The fact that we are so ignorant of this is sometimes blamed on the government who educated us to be sheep. I don't buy it. So far, at least, basic history is available to most of our citizens. We can all do this - and should - At least, until the men in uniforms come to the library to take the history books off of the shelves.
'Scuse me, but nothing in the article mentioned any messes left to be cleaned up. If that happens, it's covered by *real* laws, not the fake laws rolling around in the heads of a bunch of undertrained, glorified mall cops. The fact that they were trying to enforce laws they obviously haven't been trained to understand should be enough for you to withdraw your support for their actions.
Further, calling anyone who views porn a "pervert" is misinformed and inflammatory. Webster defines perversion as "any abberant sexual practice." A solid majority of people use pornography, and 38% of people find nothing wrong with porn. If more than ten percent of people are doing something, you really have to abuse the English language to call it "abberant".
Libraries are gateways to all manner of information, and it's not up to you or any other self-appointed thought police to determine which information people should be looking at. You don't get to look over people's shoulders to determine whether their behavior meets with your approval.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
I was going to say something about how easy and pointless it is to cherry-pick transgressions from any party, but you know what? It doesn't matter.
I don't fucking care who's encouraging the brownshirt activity; it just has to stop.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
This is an example of why privacy has to be preserved and ideas like cameras in the home cannot be accepted. They ask "If you've done nothing wrong, why worry about cameras monitoring your every activity?" ... to which this case is the perfect example of exactly why cameras should never be forced into any private place, and not even in some public ones.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
These situations will not improve until people learn to count higher than two.
Unfortunately, the problems with plurality voting are described by game theory, not arithmetic. Everybody knows how to count higher than two; not so many people know the differences between instant runoff, Condorcet, and approval voting.
What's worse: the biggest problem with democracy in America today is apathy, not ignorance. People get furious at anyone who voted for "the other guy"; yet for some reason they take it easy on the more numerous group who couldn't be bothered to vote at all.
Your attitude is what makes the Patriot Act so dangerous. The same people who tell us that its only applicable to "terrorists" in one sentence will tell us that law enforcement should be able to use what ever tools are available to fight "crime" in the next sentence.
I'm not so sure about Porn in the Libraries, but it isnt up to two crackers with official looking caps to decide the law for us.
The system doesn't allow for such modes of election in the United States. Even if people were willing to realize that a third (or fourth, or fifth, etc.) party is the solution, the system is skewed against such parties. Besides people will never vote that way en masse, because for years and years and years, their perception has been focused on this aspect of third party candidates (on the national level;) they're all nuts, ultra-liberal hippies, or plain unelectable. And why would you "throw away" your vote on that?
The only way a third party is ever gonna win is if runoff elections (in one of its many variants,) is made the new means of election in the US. Which won't happen, since the two major parties who are in a shared monopoly of power aren't gonna push for it. After all, if you're winning the game, why would you change the rules?
How about holding your nose for a couple of election cycles and giving your fellow Republicans a wake-up call? I know a few conservative people who longer call themselves Republican. If the Republicans could kick their addiction to that reliable religious demographic and ...oh I don't know... start actually espousing conservative ideals again then my conservative family and friends would return to them.
I can't help but notice that the Democrats today look a hell of a lot like the Republicans did 30 or 40 years ago. It is a side effect of the "Republicans-lite" strategy they seem to be using these days. When you have Rush Limbaugh decrying fiscal-conservatism as a Liberal value then you know that your party is in serious need of an attitude adjustment.
If the two guys are fired then I agree. If not, then it probably means they have at least the implicit approbation of their superiors.
As for the Bush administritation, they just have to create the climate . They certainly won't give every orders. Do you really think Hitler did everything all by himself ? There was a lot of local initiative like this one in Germany in the 1930.
And guess what... The Bush administration did create the climate for such things to happen. So yes it's related to Bush, Ashcroft and all the others.
If we don't take a stand now, we'll be living in a real Honest-to-God police state 10 years from now. (I know, some will say we already are.)
Hope they got a boot right up their right-wing ass, and a quick face-skid along the asphalt.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
From the article
What's impressive here is not that the HSO's interupted a patron viewing what they saw as inappropriate, which could have been a Victoria's secret catalog for all we know, but that the librarian, police officers, and government officals all acted correctly to preserve the patron's first amendment right in the politically risk realm of pornography. The fact that moral bully's got themselves hired into what's likely not a popular career (I'm sure the qualified candidates go for real "police" jobs) isn't surprising. Then again, Maryland, despite being south of the Mason Dixon line, is a "Blue State" that understands that the First Amendment protects viewpoints you don't like to.
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
Having sides is not right, and will get us no where.
Everyone remembers when the "Homeland Security Agents" showed up at someone's door for requesting a copy of Mao Zedong's Little Red Book. It turned up that there is no such thing as a Homeland Security Agent. It had to be from another agency. The incident with the little red book turned up to be a hoax anyway. Just be wary of these things. Doesn't mean its 100% accurate, just like the last library Homeland Security incident.
I'm betting they were monitoring the library computers for anything that might pop a red flag.
By random shoulder surfing???
Look, even if you support this Big Brotherism, how in hell do you think looking over the shoulder of patrons is going to find "the terrorist" looking at a bomb-making page?
It's not efficient, there aren't enough Homeland Security officers to look over every shoulder, so unless you think they can just shadow brown people in turbans -- and Tim McVeigh was neither brown nor a turban wearer, was he? -- this just wouldn't work.
Not to mention that any semi-bright terrorist isn't going to be googling "How to Build a Bomb" in a library.
This has nothing to do with "Homeland Security". (And can we please get rid of that Nazi-esque phrase? Since when have we referred to the U.S. as our "Homeland"?)
This is all about social control, about conditioning free American citizens to shut up and do what they're told when any clown in a Homeland security cap tells them what no do, no matter how ridiculous the order.
It's this training us to be docile Russians fearful of our own KGB that is destroying this country, far far far more effectively than the terrorists. the terrorists can only kill 3000 Americans at a time. This crap takes the freedom of 300 million Americans at a single blow.
WAKE UP AMERICA! Your fear is being used to enslave you. Did George Washington let any fool in a Homeland security cap tell him to take off his shoes to prove they weren't bombs? Did Sam Houston? Did Robert E. Lee? Did Teddy Roosevelt?
Wake the fuck up: out of fear of "terrorism" you've given up your rights and your balls and you act like a bunch of scared little girls.
AMERICANS, YOU'VE BECOME GIANT PUSSIES.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
My question is WTF are they doing in the Library in the first place?!
If these rent-a-cops aren't given rights by the Patriot Act, what purpose do they serve? Clearly this is out of line, and a DIRECT result of the GWB "Climate."
I'm not so sure the religious nutjobs in the US's "Religious Right" can legitimately lay claim to the title of "Christian Fundamentalist". Most of the modern day Christian sects' practices (and especially those that make up the "religious right") deviate significantly from what's written about JC in any of the books of the bible. Fundamentalism implies going back to basics, to the purest form of whatever it is you're talking about. There's just way too much baggage and hippocracy to call them "fundamentalists", because a lot of the evil, hateful crap that these preachers spew doesn't actually have anything to do with JC. Whatever fundamentals they want to go back to, they're not Christian.
Oh, you're one of those who think women don't enjoy porn...
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
Didn't you think that you're free to chose another party instead of moaning about your current. Also they have god given right to have beliefs they like.
- Arwen, I'm your father, Agent Smith.
- Well, you're just Smith, but my father is Aerosmith!
I am a registered Republican (lesser of two evils, etc.).
Huh? You're registered with a political party whose representatives have lied, spied on their own citizens, started bloody wars under false pretenses, legalized convictions without a fair trial, wantonly censor free speech and choice, endorse monopolies, and justify political decisions based on religious beliefs.
If this is the lesser of two evils, I can only assume that the only other alternative was sending your campaign contribution to the Legions of Satan.
I can't say everything was all roses and buttercups under Democratic rule, but at least then we had a good economy, weren't continually at war with faraway places, and had reasonable expectations of privay. Oh, and the world at large didn't hate us.
how are we better than the damn Islamist's
Evidently, you still have quite way to go if your first reaction is to damn an entire religion based on the actions a few. I can clearly imagine the "Islamist's" sitting over there on the other side of the world wondering when the damn Christian Americans are going to stop invading and occupying Islamic countries.
It only prohibits the Federal Government from abridging the freedom of speech. Local state authorites are not Congress. It only prohibits Congress.
Let me refer you to the 14th Amendment incorporation doctrine (and n.b. that state constitutions all AFAIK have guarantees that are the same or even stronger than this).
It seperates the Government from the Church, not the church from the Government.
No, it does both. If the government cannot engage in dealings of a religious capacity it can't take orders from a religion either. To do so would be to have one of those religions be officially on top, and then you're back doing what even you agree isn't permissible.
So, the church can influence the Federal Government quite a bit. And they can practicaly run State Governments if it is allowed in that state's constitution.
Let me remind you of the republican clause of the Constitution as well.
If you don't like that, move to a different state. That is the great thing about this country we live in.
No, the great thing about this country is that you can be so wrong that I wouldn't trust you if you said that the sun rises in the east, and yet we're secure enough, knowing that you'll always be marginalized as a nut, that we don't have to lock you away or shoot you or otherwise get our hands dirty in order to keep you from being dangerous to others. It's great.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Computers are cheap.
Let people do their porn viewing in the privacy of their own home and foot the bill themselves.
I object to the public financing the vehicle for perverts to get a FREE thrill at taxpayers expense. These sickos go wank off in the library then leave the mess behind for someone else. BS to that. That's just flat out wrong.
Does it actually cost more money for someone to go to the library and surf for porn than it does to find a farmers almanac? No? Then your point is moot. While lately I feel deep shame for being an American there are some things that make me feel some pride... and free public libraries are it starting circa 1731 by Ben Franklin and company IIRC. The free exchange of information paramont to American culture and one of the keystones to the foundation of the USA. They are open to all whether one's interest is theology, science, pop culture, or the art of macrame coat hangers. This is what I, as a taxpayer, pay for. While I would prefer not sharing a seat next to someone looking up cumshots... this is the job of the librarian to deal with such matters. For any goverment agency to take it upon them selves to police them is a stain on the very soul of the founding fathers, and is simply unamerican.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Having actually read the article I discovered that the two morons making the library announcement were county officials in the county dept of "Homeland Security" and were not part of the US Gov't Dept of Homeland Security. Moreover, these two blokes were acting on their own initiative and without approval from their superiors.
See, here's the problem. We have limitations on the power of government for a reason. It's because government badly abuses it when it gets the opportunity -- years of the FBI under Hoover taught us that lesson very well.
Now, lots of people -- possibly even well-meaning people -- in a position to receive increased powers are all for those increased powers. After all, *they* know that they are not going to abuse those powers. Surely, if someone else or someone later on abuses those powers, they'll be smacked down.
The problem is that this logic also justifies authority having unlimited, absolute power.
We already had to go through this very painfully before.
From WP's CIA article:
DCI James R. Schlesinger had commissioned a series of reports on past CIA wrongdoing. These reports, known euphemistically as "the Family Jewels", were kept close to the Agency's chest until an article by Seymour Hersh in the New York Times broke the news that the CIA had been involved in the assassination of foreign leaders and kept files on some seven thousand American citizens involved in the peace movement (Operation CHAOS). Congress investigated the CIA in the Senate through the Church committee, named after Chairman Frank Church (D-Idaho) and in the House through the Pike committee, named after Chairman Otis Pike (D-N.Y.); and these investigations led to further embarrassing disclosures. Around the Christmas of 1974/5, another blow was struck by Congress when they blocked covert intervention in Angola.
The CIA was subsequently prohibited from assassinating foreign leaders. Further, the prohibition against domestic spying, which had always been prohibited by the CIA charter, was again to be enforced, with the FBI having sole responsibility for domestic investigation of US citizens.
The FBI had plenty of its own dirty laundry turned up by the Church Committee.
Why go through all this again? We *know* that if you grant unnecessary powers and simply trust that they will not be abused, they *will* be abused. Why on earth did we allow PATRIOT through?
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Way to go, comparing Bush to Hitler again. Let's take another try at it; this time to a modern-day socialist party and see what happens:
...If Bill Clinton is fired for misconduct and lying under oath then I agree. If not, then it probably means he has at least the implicit approbation of his constituents.
As for the whole Democrat party, they just have a climate of corruption. Far more Democrats were indicted under Clinton in his last four years than any other president in history, including GWB, and they tend to take more money from lobbyists. But they certainly don't give him direct orders for his unlawful actions. Do you really think Hitler did everything all by himself? There was a lot of lying and bribary going on in Germany in the 1930s.
And guess what... the Clinton administration did create the climate for such things to happen. So yet it's exactly related to the Democrats, Harry Reid, Sandy Burger and all the others. We can see how this climate caused STDs and political corruption to rise dramatically around the world. It's the new global warming!
It's this training us to be docile Russians fearful of our own KGB that is destroying this country, far far far more effectively than the terrorists. the terrorists can only kill 3000 Americans at a time.
Only 3000?! What if one day YOU are a victim? Then even if it was only 1, only you, it wouldn't be a small deal for you.
Nuclear (including dirty bombs), Chemical, and Biological weapons can kill millions.
This crap takes the freedom of 300 million Americans at a single blow.
Give us a break. It was a local Homeland secuity Department, no one was arrested, the officers were actually reassigned off those duties (!), they are providing new training explaining the First Amendment, the sotry is well covered, and the politicians are embarrased and are sort of apologizing (saying it was "unfortunate" and "regrettable").
Contrast this to real oppressive regimes where people disappear, are executed, the media is censored and comments like yours would get you imprisoned, sent to a gulag, tortured and/or killed.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
In that particular case, I'm talking about how some in the gay community demonize all Christians. These are the same jokers that talk about tolerance in one breath, and are completely intolerant in the next. Turn this around, and there are some in the religious straight community that demonize all gays, but then say "love your neighbor". Both groups aren't thinking straight.... er, right.
And like I said, this isn't a universal thing. I have quite a few gay friends, and none of them act that way at all. But, there are some in that community that do.
Juxtapose 3000 with 3 million. That's 3 orders of magnitude of difference. Any pain and suffering, it doesn't even have to be death, can be devasting if it happens to you. Lose your job, break up from a long relationship, etc. Or comparing deaths, how about cancer or other illness related or even car accidents. That doesn't mean driving should be illegal and every has to take mass transportation and let professional drivers handle it.
We do not have a fully oppressive regime but such governments do no form overnight. And it doesn't even need an intelligent designer to get us there. Many good willing misguided people can accidently take us there. It is at this juncture (or way before actually) when we should complain and work together to prevent such things from ever occuring. It is very easy for Congress to give powers to the President (or people give powers to government) for action A (global terrorism) and then next thing you know, they're using those powers and slightly expanding on those powers to watch over things they have nothing to do with their jurisdiction or spirit of the law. It is very common in nature for power to accumulate. WE have to be the resistence to force equilibrium BEFORE the whole institution collapses on itself. WHY wait before it gets worse? Can't you see the transgressions that have already happened? Regardless of party, partisan politics, biases, look at what is happening!
In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these. - Paul Harvey
You don't fire people over something this minor.
They made up non-existent police powers for themselves and started trying to enforce rules that they had just made up. That sounds like the kind of people we absolutely, zero-tolerance should throw out of law enforcement.
Because various Libertarian nuts on Slashdot make it so bloody clear that a society under Libertarian rule has only one rule: "every man for himself, and if you can't swim, you deserve to drown". Most of us are sane enough to realize that under the law of the jungle, we are gazelles, not lions. And some of us have no desire to promote such laws even if we were the predators under them, since they would make others into prey.
Being consistently selfish and evil isn't really something to be proud of.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Courts do not ignore the free exercise clause. There's plenty of cases involving it. Perhaps there are fewer cases on it due to fewer facts giving rise to it (though I don't know their relative proportions) but that still isn't something to blame courts about. There aren't many Third Amendment cases either, but only because the government's been pretty good about that one.
Also, you need to read Marsh v. Chambers and the dissent. Basically, the Court made an exception for that situation, and that situation alone. Schools don't get treated like Congress. And if they were treated alike, the dissent indicates that Congress et al would have to stop.
Of course, students may pray all they like, and no one can stop them. But they also have to be non-disruptive and attend to their responsibilities. And the school itself cannot promote prayer or lead the students in it, which is what your typical establishment clause case for schools is about.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.