The beginnings of a manifesto.
Right now, these are isolated thoughts, of varying quality, and some certainly poor.
Perhaps it will be feasible -- or even desirable -- to bind them coherently, but perhaps not. Time will tell.
Some of them will certainly have to be refined or even discarded. The question is: which?!
Welcome, readers. I'm not putting these posts into my sob story because they don't advance that narrative. You wanna read this crap, go ahead. You don't wanna read it? You can still enjoy my harrowing misadventures and mistreatment at the hands of an indifferent bureaucracy and its servant-for-$$$, The Abattoir.
Perhaps it will be feasible -- or even desirable -- to bind them coherently, but perhaps not. Time will tell.
Some of them will certainly have to be refined or even discarded. The question is: which?!
Welcome, readers. I'm not putting these posts into my sob story because they don't advance that narrative. You wanna read this crap, go ahead. You don't wanna read it? You can still enjoy my harrowing misadventures and mistreatment at the hands of an indifferent bureaucracy and its servant-for-$$$, The Abattoir.
Total Comments 81
Comments
-
No organization can do everything, or even a lot of things well. Government is an organization charged with doing the big things that people can't otherwise do. It behooves the government to focus on big things, such as protecting the citizens from big harm, such as murder, rape, and robbery. In order to do that, government should let go of little things, as they detract from the bigger mission.Posted 09-08-2015 at 08:52 PM by Len Myers 
-
If you hear the dog whistle, you're the dog!. Corollary: if you see sexism everywhere, you're the sexist!; and if you see racism everywhere, you're the racist. & etc.
Posted 09-16-2015 at 09:32 AM by Len Myers
-
Government mostly does the following:
- writes edicts of various kinds, (i.e. laws, regulations, judicial opinions)
- enforces the same, with considerable latitude, often depending on whether the miscreant is favored;
- spends money; and
- taxes, which includes fees and fines.
Along the way, government has... gone more than haywire. You, the common citizen, when dragged into the maws of the legal system, are presumed to be aware of every single law that exists. The cop that arrested you? Not so much. The prosecutor who's trying to put your ass in prison? No. The trial judge who keeps his court fully staffed with fees levied upon you? He's got a powerful incentive to find you guilty, so as to take your money.
These issues must be rolled back and eliminated, so that Americans may breathe free again.Posted 09-16-2015 at 04:32 PM by Len Myers
-
I got into a bit of bother reviewing the recent story of the motorist who was pulled over for making eye contact with a cop.
Who are these people?! It's appropriate to revoke qualified immunity for police and other state/federal agents, absolute immunity for prosecutors and corrupt others, and self-declared (judicial) immunity for judges.
We can go further and remove a particularly vile weapon from the arsenal of lazy, incompetent and/or malicious prosecutors: the plea bargain. Make prosecutors prove their case, and in the case of multiple charges, all must be proved or the defendant walks. And the prosecution doesn't, for this purpose, get to drop any charges once the trial begins.
While we're at it, all charges must be brought simultaneously. No fair to bring a few, then, when they've been beaten, bring some more.Posted 09-18-2015 at 06:40 PM by Len Myers
Updated 09-21-2015 at 02:31 PM by Len Myers -
One unarguable tenet of a just society is that everyone gets a fair break. Unfortunately everyone in society is working to obtain better-than fair results, especially by utilizing the power of the state to enforce same.
The first objective to get the electorate to agree that they can't permit long-term favoritism of the state in any significant endeavor, the second is to find leaders who will ruthlessly cull such favoritism wherever it is found.Posted 09-20-2015 at 12:12 AM by Len Myers
-
Occupational licensing is a crock, designed to restrict entry into the supply-side of a labor market, jack up revenue for local governments, and incidentally to make money for those who engage in "training."
Posted 09-21-2015 at 12:39 AM by Len Myers
-
It's irksome that our governments seem to want a daily report of each of our lives for the purpose of handing it over to the Chinese and Russians.
Make the Chicoms and Russkys search for it themselves, or at least charge them for the service, I say!Posted 09-21-2015 at 12:52 AM by Len Myers
-
Incarceration is inefficient and expensive. In New York State, it's $60,000 / year per convict, admittedly higher than elsewhere. We could assume the average is in the general range of $40,000 / year.
This is justifiable only if the cost of not incarcerating a convict is more, which it may well be. Let's also consider that the estimated number of convicts is about 2,220,000, so that the expense involved is somewhere in the $60-100B range annually. If there's nothing to be done, then so be it, but I'll bet there is a subset of convicts who could be persuaded to see the error of their ways with... don't gag... a measured dose of pain. Yes, I'm suggesting a trial period of whipping and/or caning, certainly at a non-life-threatening level. A convict, if deemed appropriate for this alternative treatment, could opt to have impressed upon him that he should change his ways. One might even accept such treatment in lieu of a trial. Society would save money, the convict could get it over with and return to society, perhaps even without having to miss work. Win-win.
If the trial period shows satisfactory non-redicivism then the trial could be expanded, and we could determine which people, and which crimes are appropriate for alternative treatment.
I'm not suggesting that anyone be whipped, but merely recommend it as an alternative to spending endless days locked up, eating bad food, getting poor medical care, being raped by other prisoners and/or brutalized by indifferent prison staff.
Of course the prison-industrial complex would scream bloody murder, as would for-profit prisoning.
On the other hand, some people are incorrigible. For them, there's no alternative to prison or death. And there's no valid reason for the death penalty to come with such a high cost, other than there are people who have a religious fervor to make it their life's work to preclude the death penalty. And the processes veritably encourage this kind of behavior.Posted 09-21-2015 at 02:51 PM by Len Myers
Updated 09-28-2015 at 12:37 AM by Len Myers (less should have been more.) -
I see no reason to give copyright to telecasts of unscripted sports events. There's no creative input.
In a similar vein, if terms of service overstep their bounds then the issuer should lose all stated rights.
Last, we seem to live in a world where innovation is ceaseless and unending. Technology patents are b------t, especially patents for items not in production.Posted 09-21-2015 at 11:50 PM by Len Myers
-
Most people despise the way they are treated for jury duty.
I recommend a simple approach. You want out? Pay $5/year, or whatever it takes to fund what follows: You don't want out, set your price. Hell, make a living doing jury duty. Judges and lawyers could rate jurors, and good ones should be able to command a high price -- from the innocent. Furthermore, good jurors should be immune from being arbitrarily stricken. Struck?
While we're at it, it's time to codify that jury nullification is legal, and even appropriate. Judges should instruct jurors of this at every trial.
Jurors should also be given all the information that would be available to a judge, if he were fact-finding.
And instructions to the jury should, of course, be in writing.Posted 09-28-2015 at 12:43 AM by Len Myers
Updated 10-03-2015 at 06:58 PM by Len Myers -
When I ran for Mayor, I went up to a Bronx senior citizens center, and I told 200 senior citizens: “Ladies and gentlemen, a judge I helped elect was mugged recently. And do you know what that judge did, ladies and gentlemen? He called a press conference and he said to the newsmen, ‘This mugging of me will in no way affect my decision in matters of this kind.’ And an elderly lady got up in the back of the room and said, ‘Then mug him again.’”
Ed Koch. 1980 Democratic Convention.Posted 09-28-2015 at 01:01 AM by Len Myers
-
One of the things that the US Government must answer for is a requirement that poison be placed in industrial alcohol. But this ties into "organizations don't commit crimes" in this case, against citizens, people do.
What kind of sicko would poison, or want to poison things that it's known that people eat or drink? The same applies to the aerial application of Paraquat on marijuana. Or smoke.Posted 10-01-2015 at 10:33 AM by Len Myers
-
Your life is public, deal with it. Come to think of it, deal with everything! Grow up!
I'll admit that not dealing with it can make for a more interesting narrative.Posted 10-02-2015 at 08:03 PM by Len Myers
-
The beautifully evil thing about property taxes is that once they've gotten their teeth into a depressed area, it stays depressed. There's no way for anyone to build a nice structure in that area because it'll be taxed to hell and back.
Replace property taxes with flat residence taxes, or income taxes. I'm not dogmatic about this, other solutions may well be possible.Posted 10-03-2015 at 06:47 PM by Len Myers
Updated 10-03-2015 at 06:52 PM by Len Myers -
One of my pet peeves is child protective services, which appears increasingly willing to keep children in dangerous situations while simultaneously willing to take kids away on the smallest pretext. The Nation has an article on CPS, citing, of all things, the Free Range Kids movement.
Posted 10-03-2015 at 06:56 PM by Len Myers
-
Sorry, catching up on random thoughts today.
At the very least false accusers of rape should be named, and, false public accusations of rape, which can be factually rebutted should be punished more-or-less automatically at some multiple of the punishment.
There's no reason to confine this topic to rape. Many people have had their lives ruined with public, false, accusations, and those people should be given more-than-full redress from their accusers, whomever they are.
People who are not at fault, unconvicted defendants, whether criminal or civil, should not be out of pocket for the time and effort needed to remain unconvicted.
Some have had their lives even more ruined by being falsely convicted, and those should be recompensed, again, far more than in full.Posted 10-03-2015 at 07:13 PM by Len Myers
Updated 10-03-2015 at 07:25 PM by Len Myers -
I don't recall any school classes involving "how to appropriately deal with police" in school, and I doubt that they're being taught now. If I'm not wrong about this, why is that?!
Posted 10-03-2015 at 07:15 PM by Len Myers
-
Teachers and schools should be reimbursed on a percentage of students' earned income, when it happens. Income is surely not the sole measure of learning, but it's a good first-order approximation of it's ultimate value.
Posted 10-03-2015 at 07:19 PM by Len Myers
Updated 10-03-2015 at 07:26 PM by Len Myers -
Swatting? Let's hear it for death after a full year of torture. Likewise for bombing.
Posted 10-05-2015 at 04:40 PM by Len Myers
-
Evidently it's traditional in these manifestos... manifestoes? Manifesti? whatever, to mention that I don't have a girlfriend.
My take is that women are probably doing the right thing by shunning me. I can't blame them for not wanting to hitch themselves to my fading star.Posted 10-07-2015 at 08:42 AM by Len Myers
Updated 10-07-2015 at 08:34 PM by Len Myers
