OK, all you anti-gun liberal types out there

[unixronin]

(Not meaning to imply that all liberals are anti-gun, by the way.  I'm just talking to the "Ew, Guns Are Icky" set here.)

Remember all the times we evil gun-totin', NRA-decal-displayin' gun nuts have said that the Second Amendment is the most important of all the amendments, because it protects all the rest?

Well, having become one of the most strictly anti-gun states in the US, Massachusetts is now going after the right of peaceable assembly.

Yeah, yeah, I know; it says it's only for use against gangs and only in "safe zones".  But as metahacker points out, the devil is in the details.  Surely you folks remember "designated free-speech zones", right....?  Remember the first rule of legislation:  Any law, no matter how clear its original intent, sooner or later succumbs to "mission creep".

"Yeah, I know this law was passed for X.  But we're already using it for Y.  Why don't we use it for Z as well?  I bet we could, especially in front of Judge J."

Speaking of which...

mazianni found these two articles on the 9th Circus's ruling that US border agents can search laptops and other personal electronic devices for evidence of crimes without a warrant or cause.  Once again, "security" trumps liberty, and another little piece of the Fourth Amendment is whittled away.

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."  ...Unless we want to.

Comments

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

I recommend (you may already have seen this from me) Poundstone's book, Gaming the Vote (http://us.macmillan.com/gamingthevote). He ends up advocating range voting, a weighted ballot system. It's hard to say, really, what system would work best in practice without experimentation, and any system can be gamed. But I'd place choice of voting system below media reform (decentralization and requirements of non-partisanship on the part of centralized media) and raising turnout. If people aren't informed, no amount of work on the voting system will help. I have also come around to the view that we need to make voting a duty of citizenship--a situation in which one gets the votes from a self-selected sample of a minority of citizens is inherently undemocratic. The candidates pick many of the voters, the media pick more, and the rest are the minority with strong policy opinions. We would not accept that for an opinion poll--why do we accept it for the poll that picks the actual officials?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I am generally in agreement with decentralization and required non-partisanship of the media, although I question how feasible a requirement it is. I am entirely in agreement with making voting a duty of citizenship. I also tend to agree to a large extent with Heinlein in making voting not only a duty, but a privilege that must be earned — before you get a say in the future course of the nation, you should demonstrate sufficient sense of responsibility to serve your nation in some tangible manner. It would tend to be another protection against the masses voting themselves bread and circuses.