You Mean Walter Is A Girl?

At least in this case:

A Georgia mother hid her two 9-year-old twins and shot an intruder, Paul Ali Slater, several times during a home invasion on Friday, according to multiple media reports.

The deaths of all those kids in Newtown, CT were a stark tragedy.

The deaths of that young woman and her twin children would have been no less of a tragedy.  It was averted by a woman with modest skills needed to defend her family from a committed and experienced criminal.

Fortunately, she also possessed the only tool that would have enabled her to put those skills into action.

It is regrettable that the many lives saved by guns each year are not weight weighed equally in the balance when the folks that want to ban guns get busy waving bloody shirts to justify curtailing our civil rights.

The Eye In The Sky

Duality.

How does a technology geek possess concerns about the lawless use of technology?

How does a civil libertarian appreciate our ever increasing knowledge and application of technology?

It is a bit of a conundrum.

The news this past week included word that our friends at Lockheed-Martin have come up with a new spy drone that is based on the physics of the maple seed.  For the uninitiated, a maple seed has a pouch on one end.  The balance of the seed is a broad thin blade.  When the maple drops a seed, the blade naturally causes the seed to spin.  The aerodynamics of the blade helps the seed stay in the air longer and thus be able to travel further from the tree before it reaches the ground.

This new spy drone has a pod on one end where the electronics lives.  The blade is an airfoil like half of a helicopter rotor.  There is a small engine with a propeller on the end of the blade that can drive the blade so the whole thing spins.

Unlike the maple seed, this drone...the Samarai...can fly up as well as down.  It can also move forward, backwards, and side-to-side.  They think it can even fly inside windows to snoop around inside buildings.

Just think of the fun!

Which is why so many folks that care about our ever intrusive government...and limiting that intrusiveness...were posting comments about this new bit of technology.  Rich Lowry of the National Review suggests that such concerns are overblown.  He thinks that past legal limitations on the use of past technology provide a reasonable model for how future technology will be similarly limited.

I'd really like to believe that.

One the one hand, I really am fine with using any and all technological advances to their fullest in our War on Terror.

On the other hand, I really want our law enforcement officers to have rules that limit their actions and respect our individual liberty.  History suggests that such limitations are not always as effective as intended.  It does not help that the current administration seems to be stuck on the idea that Americans who profess a preference for individual liberty are a greater terrorist threat than some extremist Jihadists that have spent so much time and effort at attacking Americans; military and otherwise.

I think you can see the problem.

The fortuitous aspect to the current discussion is that I have a book idea rolling around in my head.  One of the sub-plots for this book has to do with the thorough use of surveillance technologies.

While I would like to say that this is a "win-win", I think the best I can do is a mild "tie-lose".

Corporations Are Not People

While the current driving force behind the desire to make corporations not the legal equivalent as a real person [is the concern over political contributions], there are other issues in play as well.

A person has a finite number of years of life to spend.  So investing is based on a much shorter horizon.  Companies can last for centuries and make investing decisions based on a completely different perspective.

As a result, fractions of a penny have more long term power for companies than for people.

Then we have the stilted political playing field where a company can massage the law to their advantage over time.  A company isn't trying to feed a growing family, or save for a retirement.  In contrast, people have other uses for the money they earn.  Political campaign contributions are not high on the priority list of real people.

Another fiscal difference is the way debts are handled.  If a company goes under, then the assets are sold and someone loses money.  The people in charge of that failure are free to move on to another venture without any person fiscal repercussions.  When a person goes under, they are hounded into bankruptcy and are thereafter victimized with usurious interest rates for decades.

Needless to say, I have some sympathy with the idea that when the "rights" of corporations (and other legal entities like labor unions, churches, veterans groups, etc.) are in conflict with those of real people, the real people should win.  But I am not sure of the best way to solve the problem.  One option is the "People's Rights Amendment":

Section 1. We the people who ordain and establish this Constitution intend the rights protected by this Constitution to be the rights of natural persons.

Section 2. People, person, or persons as used in this Constitution does not include corporations, limited liability companies or other corporate entities established by the laws of any state, the United States, or any foreign state, and such corporate entities are subject to such regulation as the people, through their elected state and federal representatives, deem reasonable and are otherwise consistent with the powers of Congress and the States under this Constitution.

Section 3. Nothing contained herein shall be construed to limit the people’s rights of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, free exercise of religion, and such other rights of the people, which rights are inalienable.

The Volokh Conspiracy suggests that this may not have all of the great benefits that its' supporters envision.  I think they are right.

But that means that we still have a problem in need of a practical solution.  One that places all legal entities in a secondary position when it comes to their "rights" relative to the rights of real, live, oxygen-breathing people.

Freedom Of Speech Or Religious Intolerance

From the National Review comes this report about a United Nations initiative to create a framework for limiting any criticism of Islam.

An unprecedented collaboration between the Obama administration and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC, formerly called the Organization of the Islamic Conference) to combat “Islamophobia” may soon result in the delegitimization of freedom of expression as a human right.

...

But thanks to a puzzling U.S. diplomatic initiative that was unveiled in July, Resolution 16/18 is poised to become a springboard for a greatly reinvigorated international effort to criminalize speech against Islam, the very thing it was designed to quash.

Citing a need to “move to implementation” of Resolution 16/18, the Obama administration has inexplicably decided to launch a major international effort against Islamophobia in partnership with the Saudi-based OIC. This is being voluntarily assumed at American expense, outside the U.N. framework, and is not required by the resolution itself.

Will there be any reciprocity?  Will Muslim majority countries stop persecuting those of other faiths?  Will those countries pass laws to protect those that exercise their right to leave Islam, or even convert to another faith, instead of the current practice of prison...or worse?

Will the synagogues that used to exist before the re-creation of Isreal be rebuilt?  Will there the Saudis reform their education curriculum that teaches that polytheists are to be killed, that Christians are enemies, and that Islam should be spread via 'jihad'?

I'm not holding my breath.

This initiative is shaping up to be one-sided. As Akram said, “The Resolution 16/18 was driven more by the kind of discrimination in Europe and the West in general against Muslims.” He added: “I don’t think any country in the Muslim world is deliberately discriminating against minorities.” Ihsanoglu took a similar tack, writing that “the Islamic faith is based on tolerance and acceptance of other religions. It does not condone discrimination of human beings on the basis of caste, creed, color, or faith.”

To be clear, my position is that every person retains the individual right to be criticize every religion that exists, has existed, or ever will exist.  That right greatly supersedes the sensitivities of any religious community.

The UN is no friend of liberty.  It places freedom of speech in second place to the "purposes and principles" of global governance.

(3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Experience - The Greatest Teacher

Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal Constitution talks about being wrong about the Voting Rights Act of 1982.

Unfortunately — like so many measures designed to provide redress for historic wrongs — those racially gerrymandered districts also come with a significant downside: They discourage moderation. Politicians seeking office in majority-black or –brown districts found that they could indulge in crude racial gamesmanship and left-wing histrionics.

I think what she is reaching for [are] the positive benefits of assimilation.

Tax Delinquency......With Lessons Learned!!

I saw this item today over at Glenn Reynolds' Instapundit site:

It’s easy to see why these people don’t mind higher taxes. They don’t plan on paying ‘em anyway . . . .

One aspect of the current government criticisms currently on display is the differential...dare I say disproportionate in many cases...treatment that the IRS offers to those who theoretically owe federal incomes taxes. The two current poster boys are US Representative Charles Rangel who "forgot" to report well over US$1 million dollars in income over a number of years and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner who owed $14,847 in back taxes. Mr. Geithner apparently had no intention of paying until he was nominated for his current post.

Mr. Rangel has provided amended returns and paid the taxes that were owed. He has not paid any interest nor was he assessed any penalties. Mr. Geithner paid $15,000 in interest, but was assessed no penalties by the IRS.

No normal citizen could expect such lenient treatment from the IRS when they experience a legitimate tax debt. Trust me. I had one. We weren't in the same league as Mr. Rangel and Mr. Geithner. Yet when I asked to receive the same treatment that Messrs. Rangel an Geithner received, I was told that the IRS cannot guarantee equal treatment for all taxpayers.

Apparently, the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution is not applicable when it comes to matters related to US income taxes.

Glenn has been following the fiscal follies of both Messrs. Rangel and Geithner for quite some time. Additionally, Glenn has been following the huge disconnect between those that run our government. Part of that disconnect is the penalties that our government "masters" and the well connected never seem to pay for violating public laws and policies while us little folks bear the brunt of an overly officious, oafish, and offensive federal government.

Pitchforks were made for situations where public servants forget who they work for.

I believe that Glenn was attempting to demonstrate that people in the federal government were disproportionately above the (tax) law. Glenn's post linked to this LA Times blog which continued the theme of federal workers that were unduly delinquent in paying their taxes. The blog points out several federal departments who's employees have significant tax delinquency issues and who also employ several well connected individuals with tax delinquency issues.

That LA Times blog entry was based on this Washington Post story by T.W. Farnam. T.W.'s story is focused on Capital Hill employees with tax delinquency issues. The general thought again was that the people that are imposing laws on us are apparently unable or unwilling to abide by them as well. In his story, he pointed out that the employees of the Executive Office of the President owed about as much under Barack Obama in 2009 as they had under George W. Bush in 2008.

And that got me to thinking.

If you take the federal civilian employees, the US Postal service (which are not counted as federal employees), and those serving in uniform, the US federal government employs roughly 5.3 million people. The total labor force runs roughly 154.5 million people. That makes federal employees be roughly 3.4% of the total labor force.

Alternatively, if you count only taxpayers, there are 138 million people. That makes federal employees be roughly 3.8% of the total.

The story by T.W. Farnam had a link to a more complete listing of federal employee tax delinquency that was broken down by department/group. You can sort that list a couple of different ways. But the one way you cannot sort it is by the average tax debt per person within a given group. I had to do that myself. We will get there in a moment.

The total tax delinquency of federal employees was roughly US$3.3 billion. The total tax delinquency for the entire United States was roughly US$120 billion in 2003. That's the only number I could readily find. At that rate, federal employees are only 2.76% of the total delinquent tax bill. Given the state of the economy since 2003, I think it is safe to say that the total tax delinquency has gone up just a bit. Which makes federal employees responsible for less than 2.7% of the total bill owed.

So the big lesson learned here is always get to the data before you draw a conclusion. While I do think that the larger point of government policy makers creating laws and policies that they have no intention of obeying, but that they certainly expect us to obey holds true, this particular story doesn't necessarily justify Glenn's comment from above.

Sort of.

The more complete listing linked above had 85 categories of people. It took the data and calculated the average tax debt per person in each category. I then ranked the groups on that average data. The results were surprising.

The table below shows the top 20 categories, plus some others that I found interesting.

GOVERNMENT PERKS - GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES

Index	Organization/Type of worker to the IRS	Number of delinquent employees	Balance owed	Average Owed
1	Presidio Trust	10	$680,682.00	$68,068.20
2	Office of Government Ethics	3	$75,304.00	$25,101.33
3	Education	163	$3,995,066.00	$24,509.61
4	Tennessee Valley Authority	292	$6,766,333.00	$23,172.37
5	Executive Office of the President	41	$831,055.00	$20,269.63
6	Federal Housing Finance Board	4	$79,829.00	$19,957.25
7	National Endowment for the Humanities	4	$79,279.00	$19,819.75
8	Nuclear Regulatory Commission	57	$1,099,897.00	$19,296.44
9	Military retirees	84034	$1,525,688,378.00	$18,155.61
10	Railroad Retirement Board	31	$531,798.00	$17,154.77
11	Export-Import Bank of the United States	10	$166,288.00	$16,628.80
12	Labor	463	$7,481,463.00	$16,158.67
13	Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts	754	$11,808,236.00	$15,660.79
14	Equal Employment Opportunity Commission	84	$1,303,316.00	$15,515.67
15	U.S. House of Representatives	421	$6,524,892.00	$15,498.56
16	Energy	331	$4,899,649.00	$14,802.56
17	Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation	155	$2,249,326.00	$14,511.78
18	Federal Election Commission	8	$115,747.00	$14,468.38
19	Commerce	1556	$22,246,314.00	$14,297.12
20	Office of Personnel Management	172	$2,367,268.00	$13,763.19
23	Federal Reserve System - Board of Governors	81	$1,076,733.00	$13,293.00
28	U.S. Senate	217	$2,774,836.00	$12,787.26
29	U.S. Tax Court	4	$51,111.00	$12,777.75
39	Civilian retirees	40000	$454,938,448.00	$11,373.46
43	Navy	6841	$72,432,604.00	$10,588.01
53	Defense	4454	$38,495,128.00	$8,642.82
56	Air Force	5817	$46,787,244.00	$8,043.19
57	Army	11330	$89,966,859.00	$7,940.59
67	Treasury	1204	$7,670,814.00	$6,371.11
74	Military active duty	28853	$109,557,536.00	$3,797.09

The first big surprise is how many government agencies that are directly responsible for either setting or enforcing tax policies have employees that cannot follow those policies. And we're not talking about chump change!

The Executive Office of the President comes in at number 5 on the list!

The Administrative Office of the Courts comes in at number 13.

The US House is 15th on the list.

Perhaps there is some validity to the idea that our government is staffed by people that are unwilling to live under the laws and policies that the rest of us have to observe and obey.

You would think that money men would know how to pay their taxes. Yet the US Federal Reserve - Board of Governors ranks 23rd on the list. The US Treasury department came in at number 67. I am not sure how comforting it is to know that 1200 Treasury department employees cannot satisfy their tax bill in a timely manner.

Due to my military service, I am naturally curious about the military related categories.

Active duty personnel came in at a very respectable 74 out of 85 categories. That may be the result of their lower than average pay simply limiting their ability to get into trouble with the IRS.

Yet the civilian component of the military services....the people responsible for maintaining civilian control....all fared much worse. The Navy at #43, the DoD at #53, the Air Force at #56, and the Army at #57. How can these civilians claim any authority over the active duty military when they cannot complete the simple task of paying their tax debt is beyond me.

Even worse, military retirees were 9th on the list with 84,000 tax scofflaws while civilian government retirees were 39th with only 40,000 tax reprobates! Unacceptable!

When we think about elected or appointed policy makers, I think the general theme of people that pass laws for us to obey, but not necessarily for them is sound. Mr. Rangel and Mr. Geithner are simply the last in a very long line of people that either do not understand or do not care how laws and policies affect the rest of us.

At the same time, I think we ought to be careful about using something as innocuous as tax debt data to slur all federal employees. That brush is more than a little too broad.

I didn't do a rigorous statistical regression, but a plot of the data is mostly linear. While there is a big difference in the dollars owed per person from 2nd to 85th on the list, each office is only incrementally more delinquent than the group below it. The exception at the top of the list is the Presidio Trust with a whopping $68,000 per tax debtor.

The other notable exceptions were at the bottom of the list where six agencies have 35 tax debtors with a cumulative tax debt that is less than the average delinquent from the Presidio Trust.

I would like to have population data for each category as well as some hard numbers of total taxpayers for comparison purposes. I think it is pretty easy to see where the Presidio Trust is a hotbed of tax delinquency, but it would be good to know what percentage of Presidio Trust employees are tax debtors. It would also be good to compare that percentage with the percentage of the general population.

There is no such thing as too much data.

A Lawyer Quits In Disgust

J. Christian Adams recently quit his job working for the Voting Rights section of the U. S. Justice Department.  He resigned in disgust over the way the Obama Administration appointees have eroded the principle of equality before the law by directing the dismissal of the cases against New Black Panther party members.

Some of my co-workers argued that the law should not be used against black wrongdoers because of the long history of slavery and segregation. Less charitable individuals called it "payback time." Incredibly, after the case was dismissed, instructions were given that no more cases against racial minorities like the Black Panther case would be brought by the Voting Section.


Refusing to enforce the law equally means some citizens are protected by the law while others are left to be victimized, depending on their race. Core American principles of equality before the law and freedom from racial discrimination are at risk. Hopefully, equal enforcement of the law is still a point of bipartisan, if not universal, agreement. However, after my experience with the New Black Panther dismissal and the attitudes held by officials in the Civil Rights Division, I am beginning to fear the era of agreement over these core American principles has passed.

The quickest way to turn America into a third world country is to undermine the rule of law and the idea that we all stand equal before the law.  Federal voter intimidation cases should not be sought based on skin color.....that of the victims or that of the alleged criminals that violated federal election laws.

Anything less falls far short of who we are trying to be as a nation.

Everybody Draws Mohammed Day

As any person with a moderate level of political and social awareness should know, some guy started a Facebook page encouraging "everyone" to draw a picture of the prophet revered by the world's Muslims.  The reasoning behind this stunt is to push the belligerent and extremists among the world's Muslims into doing something stupid.

It isn't too far afield from the several "protests" held in the United States where people walk, ride bikes, go to work in the nude as a way of protesting....something.  Their reasoning goes that if you are offended by the sight of female nipples, then the protesters are going to bombard you with lots of nekkid female nipples until your brain ess-plodes or you develop some tolerance for having nekkid female nipples within your field of view.  Or penises.....penisi....

Or the Vag.

In any case, that is the logic...such as it is...behind that Facebook page. [now shut down.....Google is your friend]

Mark Steyn isn't enthused with the idea, but he does commiserate with these agents provocateur.

I'm bored with death threats. And, as far as I'm concerned, if that's your opening conversational gambit, then any obligation on my part to "cultural sensitivity" and "mutual respect" is over. The only way to stop this madness destroying our liberties is (as Ayaan Hirsi Ali puts it) to spread the risk. Everybody Draws Mohammed Day does just that. Various websites are offering prizes. I only wish we could track down those sicko Danish imams* who drew their prophet as a pig, and send them the trophy.

Mutual respect should mean just that.  An understanding that there are actions that are offensive and a mutual desire to avoid stepping on the other person's toes.  Listening to NPR a little bit ago, I learned that the Muslims of Pakistan not only approved of their government's blocking access to Facebook, but they also view such things as acts of terrorism that require the immediate creation of international laws to protect their delicate eyeballs.

So we know freedom of expression isn't high on their list of priorities.

Ann Althouse is a bit more firm in her opposition to EDMD.  

I have endless contempt for the threats/warnings against various cartoonists who draw Muhammad (or a man in a bear suit who might be Muhammad, but is actually Santa Claus). But depictions of Muhammad offend millions of Muslims who are no part of the violent threats. In pushing back some people, you also hurt a lot of people who aren't doing anything (other than protecting their own interests by declining to pressure the extremists who are hurting the reputation of their religion).

The trick, IMHO, is to get those millions of Muslims that do not threaten violence to perceive their "own interests" to be best served by actively opposing the few belligerent extremists instead of simply remaining quiet and on the sidelines.  The intolerant are not deserving of tolerance.

That generates the larger question of when it is appropriate to do such things.  I recall our beloved daughter telling the story about a class she took at UNLV where the subject of flag burning was discussed.  Most of the class thought that flag burning was a right.  She stood fast in her belief that you shouldn't burn the flag because of the emotional pain caused to those that possess a deep respect for the flag.

Stop for a moment and read that again.  Those kids were having two different conversations.  One wanted to talk about rights.  The other wanted to talk about responsibilities.

We seem to do a lot of that these days.

In any case, I firmly support the right of anyone to burn the flag, show off their nipples, or to draw the so-called Prophet Mohammad.  At the same time, such things shouldn't be done for purposes as low as "because I can".

Mostly.

The recent Facebook stunt seems to fall pretty well within that limit.

Gun Owner Receives Apology - Policeman Gets Off With A Wrist Slap

The Knoxville News Sentinel has the story of a Tennessean who has received an apology from the chief of police for the Knoxville Police Department.

The short version is that Trevor Putnam had a permit to carry a concealed weapon.  It is also legal in Tennessee to carry an unconcealed weapon.  One evening a while back, Mr. Putnam escorted his girlfriend on a shopping trip to the local Walmart.  While he ordinarily would either wear a jacket or pull his shirt tail out to cover his pistol and holster, on this evening he did neither.

KPD officer Glenn Todd Greene pulled him aside to ask why he was carrying a firearm in public.  Officer Greene eventually told Mr. Putnam "he'd find a reason to put me in jail,".  A clear abuse of authority.

The fact that Mr. Putnam had a Constitutional right to do so apparently never crossed Officer Greene's mind. 

A KPD investigation following Mr. Putnam's complaint concluded that Officer Greene did not know the law and had acted unacceptably.  A letter of reprimand and mandatory supplemental training on the law resulted.  Department wide training will also take place over the course of the coming year.

My sole complaint when it comes to our law enforcers is when they forget that ordinary citizens created the governments that they serve.  Our rights supercede their perceived duties.

Any other arrangement makes us property of the government; subject to the whims of government agents.

Fortunately, most of the law enforcers I've had the pleasure of knowing look at things the same way.  They walk a tough line and I'm glad to have their honorable service.

Civil Rights = Second Amendment Rights

Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, David Kopel has the story of armed defense of the civil rights movement.  He relates the story of John Salter and his many examples of how armed minorities...and the widespread knowledge that they were prepared to defend themselves....actually saved lives during the Civil Rights movement.  Given that local law enforcement was not only unwilling to defend minorites from the Klan, local law enforcement was a part of the Klan in some parts of the South.

Having received many death threats, Salter carried a Smith & Wesson .38 special in his attaché case. One night, on a long stretch of isolated country road, a Klan vehicle tried to force Salter’s car into a high-speed chase, by tailing him nearly bumper-to-bumper. "But I continued to drive sedately, mile after mile with my revolver in my hand." Salter and the other community organizers had put out word on the grapevine that they were all armed, and he surmises that this was the reason that the Klansmen did not try to shoot him that night.

Soon after, "a local civil rights stalwart, Mrs. Alice Evans, of Enfield, opened fire with her double-barreled 12 gauge, sprinkling several KKKers with birdshot as they endeavored to burn a cross in her driveway one night and, simultaneously, approaching her home with buckets of gasoline." The Klansmen fled and went to the hospital. Mrs. Evans donated the cross to the Smithsonian Museum.

Modern gun proponents point out that most of our anti-gun laws were born during the Civil Rights era as an attempt to disarm minorities while leaving everyone else with their guns.

To advocate for Civil Rights is to advocate for our Second Amendment rights.  One doesn't exist without the other.