Is it bad that I laughed when he was tased?

The bailiff should have said, "I didn't tase you; I tased your person."

For the uninitiated, the gentleman who filmed the previous video, Robert Peterson, 22, is a "sovereign citizen," basically, someone who believes they can dispossess themselves of American citizenship so that most laws don't apply to them despite living in the country (although, you'll notice Robert Peterson claims Constitutional protections, such as freedom of movement and -- incorrectly -- freedom of the press, and accuses the bailiff of battery). They've been known to drive down the street with nothing more than hand-made cardboard license plates on their cars, for instance. And sometimes, they get rather violent.

This newsclip explains a little more about it and you also get to meet Robert, the gentleman who was tased. Frankly, he's a disrespectful little prick who deserves every single problem he brings upon himself.

Oh, and just because it's expected of me, Indiana Governor Mike Pence is caving under pressure.

Well, the bailiff did charge him with a battery, didn't he?

Old RPM, yes, indeed! He did!

@ Patrick

This may be an 'old' analysis for this blog, but please please enlighten me where it goes astray.

Your ramblings amuse me and it's cloudy here.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-intolerance-1427760183?mod=trending_now_1

Thousand-year-old Anglo-Saxon remedy appears to kill MRSA:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27263-anglo-saxon-remedy-kills-hospital-superbug-mrsa.html#.VRvzOSkrjIo

Bob in Texas, I'd be happy to oblige, but I can't read the article. I'm not subscribed to WSJ.

Robert Peterson claims Constitutional protections, -- incorrectly -- freedom of the press

Incorrectly? in what sense? where does one go to get a "press license"?

Is our lovely hostess a member of this "press"?

I R A Darth Aggie: Incorrectly? in what sense? where does one go to get a "press license"?

Is our lovely hostess a member of this "press"?

What is the press? That is a very difficult question, and one I'm not qualified to answer. (Frankly, I doubt anyone is.) There's no definitive SCOTUS ruling on the subject, so we have a collection of things like "for federal building access purposes, press must be recognized by Congress." Or even "in this district/circuit XYZ counts but in that one it doesn't." Depends on the area's interpretation of the first amendment. In some areas, even bloggers are considered press. In other areas, they're not.

He incorrectly claims freedom of the press because he believes that it allows him to video record inside a courtroom without the necessity of the judge's permission, something even the media can't do. If the judge doesn't say you can video record inside the courtroom, then you can't, "freedom of the press" notwithstanding.

I'd be happy to oblige, but I can't read the article. I'm not subscribed to WSJ. ~ Posted by: Patrick at April 1, 2015 6:50 AM

Here are some excerpts for you, Patrick:

In the increasingly bitter battle between religious liberty and the liberal political agenda, religion is losing. Witness the media and political wrath raining down upon Indiana because the state dared to pass an allegedly anti-gay Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The question fair-minded Americans should ask before casting the first stone is who is really being intolerant.

The Indiana law is a version of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) that passed 97-3 in the Senate and that Bill Clinton signed in 1993. Both the federal and Indiana laws require courts to administer a balancing test when reviewing cases that implicate the free exercise of religion.

To wit: Individuals must show that their religious liberty has been “substantially burdened,” and the government must demonstrate its actions represent the least restrictive means to achieve a “compelling” state interest. Indiana’s law adds a provision that offers a potential religious defense in private disputes, but then four federal appellate circuits have also interpreted the federal statute to apply to private disputes.

AND

In 1997 the Supreme Court limited RFRA’s scope to federal actions. So 19 states including such cultural backwaters as Connecticut, Rhode Island and Illinois followed with copy-cat legislation, and Indiana is the 20th. Courts in 11 states have extended equally vigorous protections.

Indiana was an outlier before the new law because neither its laws nor courts unambiguously protected religious liberty. Amish horse-drawn buggies could be required to abide by local traffic regulations. Churches could be prohibited from feeding the homeless under local sanitation codes. The state Attorney General even ruled Indiana Wesleyan University, a Christian college which hires on the basis of religion, ineligible for state workforce training grants.

AND

In February, 16 prominent First Amendment scholars, some of whom support same-sex marriage, backed Indiana’s legislation. “General protection for religious liberty is important precisely because it is impossible to legislate in advance for all the ways in which government might burden the free exercise of religion,” they explained.

That hasn’t stopped the cultural great and good from claiming Indiana added the religious defense in private disputes as a way to target gays. If this is Indiana’s purpose, and there’s no evidence it is, this is unlikely to work.

The claim is that this would empower, say, florists or wedding photographers to refuse to work a gay wedding on religious grounds. But under the RFRA test, such a commercial vendor would still have to prove that his religious convictions were substantially burdened.

And he would also come up against the reality that most courts have found that the government has a compelling interest in enforcing antidiscrimination laws. In all these states for two decades, no court we’re aware of has granted such a religious accommodation to an antidiscrimination law. Restaurants and hotels that refused to host gay marriage parties would have a particularly high burden in overcoming public accommodation laws.

AND

The paradox is that even as America has become more tolerant of gays, many activists and liberals have become ever-more intolerant of anyone who might hold more traditional cultural or religious views.

AND

The same reversal of tolerance applies to religious liberty. When RFRA passed in 1993, liberal outfits like the ACLU were joined at the hip with the Christian Coalition. But now the ACLU is denouncing Indiana’s law because it wants even the most devoutly held religious values to bow to its cultural agenda on gay marriage and abortion rights.

Liberals used to understand that RFRA, with its balancing test, was a good-faith effort to help society compromise on contentious moral disputes. That liberals are renouncing it 20 years after celebrating it says more about their new intolerance than about anyone in Indiana.

> Thousand-year-old Anglo-Saxon remedy
> appears to kill MRSA:

I thought homeopathy was bullshit. No?


You need to be more "science-based," Amy.


You're not "science-based" enough.

I trolled back into yesterday's thread on automatic license plate readers, and saw that Bob in Texas was unconcerned about such collection.

Then I ran across this quote:

In 2014, former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden remarked: “We kill people based on metadata.”

Source: http://www.wired.com/2015/03/data-and-goliath-nsa-metadata-spying-your-secrets

"Science-based."

Christ, I can't even type it, sarcastically, in quotation marks, without shivering at the naivete.

Hey everybody! Make sure your "primary care doctors" are "science-based"! You have to check to be sure, because out here in California, board certifications are often given to "primary care doctors" who base their treatments on the works of Seuss, Milne and Sendak. And Beria. And Martin & Lewis.

…And you wouldn't want that! No, you need to make certain your doctor is "science-based."

But it's easy to check... Look for the words "Science-based™" on his business card, usually at the lower left, in dark blue ink.

That's when you'll know you're getting the very best.

What is the press? That is a very difficult question, and one I'm not qualified to answer. (Frankly, I doubt anyone is.)

Agreed, because in this Age of Miracles, most everyone is a few clicks away from having a printing press and an infinite number of barrels of ink.

Anyone with a smart phone can find an app that will live stream their camera, and putting them firmly into the realm of broadcasting.

On the other hand, one don't have the right to interrupt government operations. Amazing how judges seem to frown upon disturbing their work.

It wasn't wrong to laugh when the goober got tased...he had it coming.

> I can't read the article. I'm
> not subscribed to WSJ.

Exactly. See, the problem isn't teh gay, the problem is living one's life as a nine-year-old. 'Distant, unknown people aren't making the world perfectly easy and giving me free stuff! Waahh!'

The topic means something to you or it doesn't. You've been offered a dozen links to consider and respond to... You won't make the time. You don't care about this… You just want to see if, like a child, you can manipulate the grownups and make them jump.

I thought homeopathy was bullshit. No?

Most of it is. Some of it is not.

Properly done experimentalism can weed out what works and what doesn't.

We used to laugh about the old timey saw bones using leeches to cure illnesses. Turns out that if you have certain diseases, that will work.

What doesn't work is trying to use leeches to cure the common cold. As an old, dead white guy used to say first, do no harm.

Well, Conan took the trouble to post excerpts from the WSJ for me, and I was asked to respond to it, so...

In a nutshell, it sounds like a lot of "How dare you discriminate against my right to discriminate against you!"

But, let's cover some of the specific points:

To wit: Individuals must show that their religious liberty has been “substantially burdened,” and the government must demonstrate its actions represent the least restrictive means to achieve a “compelling” state interest.

First, I dislike these undefined terms. How is one "substantially burdened"? How substantially? You could argue that baking a wedding cake for a gay wedding is a "substantial" burden to your conscience.

And how "compelling" is a compelling state interest? Is the state really that interested in a gay couple getting a wedding cake from the baker of their choice.

(That said, I think asking for a wedding cake from a company that doesn't want to make you one is silly. Go to another baker. Or tell them it's a wedding cake and to leave off the plastic bride and groom figurines and put two Ken dolls on it yourself. I mean, really. This debate is ridiculous.)

That hasn’t stopped the cultural great and good from claiming Indiana added the religious defense in private disputes as a way to target gays. If this is Indiana’s purpose, and there’s no evidence it is, this is unlikely to work.

No evidence? When Governor Michael Pence signed the bill into law in a private ceremony, there were certain people in attendance, including three well-known anti-gay lobbyists. Micah Clark, who believes homosexuality is a treatable illness, Curt Smith, who compares homosexuality to adultery and bestiality, and who helped write the bill, Eric Miller, who circulated a pamphlet making the patently false statement that clergymen would be jailed for preaching against homosexuality should gay marriage pass.

You may not consider this a slam-dunk...we don't know why these three people were involved.

Just like we don't know why Sarah Palin asked several times on separate occasions if certain books could be pulled from the public library shelves. (Yes, we do know why.)

And he would also come up against the reality that most courts have found that the government has a compelling interest in enforcing antidiscrimination laws. In all these states for two decades, no court we’re aware of has granted such a religious accommodation to an antidiscrimination law. Restaurants and hotels that refused to host gay marriage parties would have a particularly high burden in overcoming public accommodation laws.

This argument is disingenuous for one reason: Gays are not covered under antidiscrimination laws at this time. There are no antidiscrimination laws to enforce where gays are concerned.

The paradox is that even as America has become more tolerant of gays, many [gay?] activists and liberals have become ever-more intolerant of anyone who might hold more traditional cultural or religious views.

I disagree. Many gays and liberals hold traditional and religious views themselves. To wit, check out the Metropolitan Community Church, which is a gay affirming Christian Church. Or, for that matter, many other denominations that are gay-affirming, such a Unity, Unitarian Universalist (which does not truly consider itself Christian), Lutheran, to say nothing of the number of independent gay churches out there.

What I'm against is your using your traditional or religious views as a justification to discriminate against me. Religion was once used as a justification to discriminate against blacks. Then the law stepped in.

And it isn't just about photographers or wedding cakes (or, as the article forwards, hotels that might object to the use for their meeting rooms to host gay wedding receptions). If two men walk into a restaurant, for instance, and the server assumes their a gay couple (whether they truly are or not), do they have the right to tell them "We don't serve your kind here"?

As for the rest of it, the same thing applies. It's not that gays are intolerant of religion (although some might be, but then again, so are some heterosexuals); it's that gays object to your religious or traditional values being used as a basis to discriminate.

"If two men walk into a restaurant, for instance, and the server assumes their a gay couple (whether they truly are or not), do they have the right to tell them "We don't serve your kind here"?"

I guess you missed Crid's previous questions about whether you want the force of law used.

Do they have a right to refuse service to anyone?

That's what every braying voice is ignoring. I bet you are silently saying to yourself, "Yes - as long as it isn't me."

If you get a job (have to assume you don't have one, or you'd have seen this), do you want the local neo-Nazis right behind the gays, asking for their own cake?

That - in absurdity - is what you're arguing for: Big Brother to get what you want for you and damn the consequences. Say this out loud and be honest for once: "I want government to tell everyone who they must serve."

When your points are about the law, and not about yourself, maybe you'll make sense.

This put things into perspective for me. What's wrong w/getting your day in court?

http://1stamendmentpartnership.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/FAM101-How-RFRA-Works-Infographic-R5.png

It's not reassuring to think that a judge or jury will be gauging the sincerity of my belief to figure out whether a law applies to me or not.

My sincerity is my own beeswax. Sincerity is something that's kind and morally essential in some circumstances, but demonstrably evil in others. (Without insincerity you can't have irony, and irony is the essential adult reflection.)

The quintessence of this issue is whether or not you can compel people to play nice just because it makes you feel happier. I say you can't.