
Ayn Rand on crime…


The weaponization of law against speech disliked by powerful people has prompted landmark free speech decisions. “The constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action,” the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969).

Another story of another cop getting insulted by a store employee created yet another internet outrage. This time, however, it is a little different, as it appears the police manufactured the entire ordeal — and were caught. A police department’s Facebook post went viral last year with Herington Police Chief Brian Hornaday’s rant about one of his officers receiving a coffee with “f**king pig” inscribed on it. That expletive is now the subject of embarrassment and controversy for the department who is attempting to write it off as a joke.
Before continuing with the rest of the story it is important to point out that had anyone else besides a member of the protected class like police officers gotten a “f**k you” written on their cup, we would not have heard about it at all. Only when it allegedly happens to cops does the nation collectively lose its mind.
Scores of Government bodies, the armed forces and even the gambling regulator will legally be allowed to use child spies – including against their parents.
Police and the security services are among those who will be allowed to use under-18s as covert human intelligence sources (CHIS) under ‘exceptional circumstances’ according to official documents.
But guidance for the Covert Intelligence Bill, currently going through the Lords, outlines other public bodies who will be allowed to employ them as undercover agents.
As well as police, MI5, MI6 and the National Crime Agency, they include the Gambling Commission, county and district councils, the Environment Agency and the Food Standards Agency.
The document, which has been published online, prohibits those under 16 from being used to inform on their parents or guardians.
But it permits the use of older teenagers to be used against their own family under special circumstances.
The arrival of government-operated autonomous police robots does not look like predictions in science fiction movies. An army of robots with gun arms is not kicking down your door to arrest you. Instead, a robot snitch that looks like a rolling trash can is programmed to decide whether a person looks suspicious—and then call the human police on them. Police robots may not be able to hurt people like armed predator drones used in combat—yet—but as history shows, calling the police on someone can prove equally deadly.
Long before the 1987 movie Robocop, even before Karel Čapek invented the word robot in 1920, police have been trying to find ways to be everywhere at once. Widespread security cameras are one solution—but even a blanket of CCTV cameras couldn’t follow a suspect into every nook of public space. Thus, the vision of a police robot continued as a dream, until now. Whether they look like Boston Dynamics’ robodogs or Knightscope’s rolling pickles, robots are coming to a street, shopping mall, or grocery store near you.
The head of the Joe Biden transition team for the US Agency for Global Media, Richard Stengel, has branded himself the “chief propagandist,” urged the government to use propaganda against its “own population,” and called to “rethink” the First Amendment.
Richard Stengel, the top state media appointee for US President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team, has enthusiastically defended the use of propaganda against Americans.
“My old job at the State Department was what people used to joke as the chief propagandist,” Stengel said in 2018. “I’m not against propaganda. Every country does it, and they have to do it to their own population. And I don’t necessarily think it’s that awful.”
A recent Morning Joe appearance by CIA analyst-turned House Representative Elissa Slotkin eagerly informed us that the real battle against terrorism is now inside America’s borders.
“The post 9/11 era is over,” Slotkin tweeted while sharing a clip of her appearance. “The single greatest national security threat right now is our internal division. The threat of domestic terrorism. The polarization that threatens our democracy. If we don’t reconnect our two Americas, the threats will not have to come from the outside.”
“Before Congress, Elissa worked for the CIA and the Pentagon and helped destabilize the Middle East during the Bush and Obama admins,” tweeted journalist Whitney Webb in response. “What she says here is essentially an open announcement that the US has moved from the ‘War on [foreign] terror’ to the ‘War on domestic terror’.”
What I expected then, after Trump would have unceremoniously lost the 2016 election, was a type of cultural purge against anybody and everybody who enabled his run or supported him. What surprised me was that after he won the cultural purge proceeded anyway. In retrospect it seems obvious, at the time it blindsided me.
For the next four years we watched any (remaining) semblance of objectivity and impartiality wither away from the mainstream media. Even more troubling, was that it was also happening withinBig Tech. Everything polarized and all judgement calls became characteristically asymmetrical. As I noted on occasion, that compared to the post 9/11 era when the Neocons controlled the narrative and the word “liberal” was a slur, everything flipped. Now it was the word “conservative” that was unusable and being a single micron to the right of centre was equated with being “literally Hitler”.
I could list the countless examples of deplatformings, cancellations, character assassinations and careers destroyed in the intervening time. It became so ridiculous, so devoid of any attempt at a claim to due process or fairness that an entire counter-culture has formed around criticizing or ridiculing it. I wrote a book about defending from deplatform attacks, which I started giving away for free in April when Big Tech started deplatforming deviant reporting on the COVID-19 crisis. Babylon Bee sprang into existence and quickly rivalled The Onion, riffing on cancel culture and hitting headwinds on multiple occasions when their scathing satire was indistinguishable from the reality they were lampooning.
After the storming of the capitol on Wednesday, mainstream media and establishment voices began throwing around a term that should make us all pay attention — “domestic terrorism.” As the group of MAGA rioters stormed the capitol to take selfies with cops, steal podiums, and hang from banisters, president-elect Joe Biden quickly took to his platform to characterize them as domestic terrorists.
“Don’t dare call them protesters,” Biden said in remarks from Wilmington, Delaware. “They were a riotous mob. Insurrectionists. Domestic terrorists. It’s that basic. It’s that simple.”
Unfortunately, during the turmoil, a police officer was killed and a protester shot to death, as well as three other individuals, who were apparently part of the MAGA protest and died from “medical emergencies.” While it was certainly terrible, this riot does not come close to the description Biden gave it, calling it “one of the darkest days in the history of our nation.”
Really Joe? Was it?
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