The ODE ran a story today on the Campbell Club incident, mainly dueling quotes between the EPD and the co-opers. I enjoyed this part for the mental image (emphasis added):

[EPD Officer] Stubbs said people were not allowed out of their handcuffs to urinate because of safety concerns.

“One man in handcuffs had to use the restroom, so we allowed his girlfriend to help him,” Stubbs said. “He was not released from his handcuffs because he had previously been threatening officers, and it was a safety issue.”

You ol’ kinky polecats!

There’s a guest post up on Blue Oregon called “The 2nd Amendment is for Progressives Too” by someone who self-describes as “a progressive libertarian, someone who used to be welcome in the Republican Party.” A promising headline, I suppose, but unfortunately the post itself displays a fundamental ignorance of the actual motivations underlying conservative critiques of gun control legislation.

After some obligatory paranoia (”He explained to me that if our freedoms are taken away, it will come from the right, not the left, and maybe progressives are the ones who should be a little paranoid.”), the author, Peter Hall, goes on to make some curious assertions about the point of the Second Amendment:

Our founding fathers understood this, and I believe the 2nd amendment was designed specifically to allow military style weapons in the hands of the public…  it is clear to me that our founders were not thinking of hunting rifles when they wrote the amendment.

The Democratic Party has a major opportunity to make the West blue (with the exception of Utah, that religion thing). Truly embrace responsible gun ownership, and we take a big weapon away from the right wingers (lame pun intended). [emphasis added]

A couple of things, here:

First off, just what sort of weaponry does he imagine the founders were thinking of when the Second Amendment was written, if not “hunting rifles”? It’s not as if there was a whole lot of distinction between “military-style” weapons and firearms that might be used for hunting in the late 18th Century. Hall’s distinction seems arbitrary, to say the least.

Second, I’m not sure that someone who conceives of Second Amendment rights as something to be adopted solely for the purpose of “[taking] a big weapon away from the right-wingers” and “making the West blue” really quite “gets” it.

The Second Amendment is not a “wedge” issue. The right to keep and bear arms is a right guaranteed by the Constitution.  It’s not about “blue” or “red”. Nevertheless, while Hall might be a bit misguided, I’m hesitant to be too hard on someone who wants to finally pull the Democrats closer to a position that respects the Second Amendment. That’s more than can be said about some of the people in his comments section, who have such perceptive things to say as:

“On a day where the newspaper talks about how we’re supposed to make a bunch of noise and wear bright orange clothes when we’re out hiking (thereby destroying the solitude and beauty) because hunters are accidentally killing people, a post celebrating guns.”

“One can responsibly use a gun about as easily as one can responsibly drive a tank down a sidewalk.”

“Europeans seem to manage to get by without personal arsenals. Perhaps the difference was explained by Michael Moore in “Sicko.” In France the government fears the people. In America the people fear the government. So what will they do with all their guns? There may come a day when some people wake up and realize they are under a fascist dictatorship and call for a charge on the barricades…”

“… when the NRA starts advocating for public education and living-wage jobs, and stops worrying that the gummit gonna take away their armor-piercing ammo, then we might be getting somewhere.”

It goes on in that vein. One can only help but feel that people with the sort of views as Mr. Hall have a long way to go before they can overcome the reflexive and frankly ignorant anti-gun reactions of their fellow “progressives”.

 Shocking news!

The other statistic that emerged from a study of active killers is that they almost exclusively seek out “gun free” zones for their attacks.

In most states, concealed handguns are prohibited at schools and on college campuses even for those with permits.

Many malls and workplaces also place signs at their entrances prohibiting firearms on the premises.

Now tacticians believe the signs themselves may be an invitation to the active killers.

 […]

 As soon as they’re confronted by any armed resistance, the shooters typically turn the gun on themselves.

A ringing endorsement of the clearly effective institution of the “gun free zone” if ever I’ve heard one.

(h/t: Instapundit)

It’s a story that sounds like it could’ve come from the University of Oregon: a law professor got on the wrong side of a group of minority students and found himself on the receiving end of a bunch of bogus racism charges intended to smear his reputation and drag his name through the dirt.

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 FIRE has just released a report on one of the most overt and chilling thought-reform program I have ever heard of at an American university. The University of Delaware’s office of Residence Life forced students to attend its ResLife program, which sought to turn them into little social justice shock troops. From the report:

Mandatory group sessions singled out and shamed non-minority students because of their “privilege” in American society. Staff members kept individual files on students and their beliefs - which were to be archived after graduation. RAs were trained in the zero-tolerance policy against anything “oppressive” - an untoward word would trigger immediate notification of the campus police. RAs were required to report their “best” and “worst” one-on-one sessions to their superiors, including students’ names and room numbers. Posters and door decorations provided the ResLife messages everywhere; one could not escape them. One administrator of the program, Sendy Guerrier, wrote that students “should be confronted with this information at every turn.” Students with “traditional” beliefs had to become “allies” and “change agents” by their senior year.

There’s so much outrageous material I don’t even know where to start. For example, these are two definitions that were taught to RA’s during training sessions:

A RACIST: A racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality. By this definition, people of color cannot be racists, because as peoples within the U.S. system, they do not have the power to back up their prejudices, hostilities, or acts of discrimination…

REVERSE RACISM: A term created and used by white people to deny their white privilege. Those in denial use the term reverse racism to refer to hostile behavior by people of color toward whites, and to affirmative action policies, which allegedly give ‘preferential treatment’ to people of color over whites. In the U.S., there is no such thing as “reverse racism.”

What’s more disturbing is the University of Delaware shopped its cutting-edge “curricular approach” to resident education to other universities in annual “Residential Curriculum Institutes.” You can see how organized and entrenched the social justice crowd is on college campuses. They all use the same buzzwords and methods, whether at the University of Oregon or the University of Delaware, and they use their positions in student and university government to force their twisted worldview on students.

Please read the full report, as I can’t really do it justice. If you like going to college without having to be “re-educated,” you should check out FIRE anyways. (FIRE once defended the Commentator’s First Amendment rights when the ASUO tried to defund us.)

With ACORN making sure Mickey Mouse isn’t denied his right to vote and dead goldfish getting voter registration cards, maybe it’s time to stop maintaining that requiring ID to vote isn’t a villainous racist tactic designed to suppress the minority vote by hearkening back to the days of Jim Crow?

Doubly so, in fact, since many of the voter ID laws in question are at this point several years old — more than enough time by any standard to go out and get some legitimate form of identification.

For their part, Obama supporters maintain that there’s nothing to worry about because vote fraud is extraordinarily rare and voter-registration fraud isn’t really a big deal anyways — an interesting about-face from the days when Diebold was stealing elections.*

* Diebold is, in fact, horrible.

According to a new survey, the Oregon Senate race has Gordon Smith and Jeff Merkley, who’ve been running two of the most disgusting campaigns I’ve ever seen, running neck and neck (41% and 46%, respectively), “undecided” pulling in 6% of the vote and… David Brownlow of the Constitution Party (?!) polling at 7%.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Constitution Party, whose Presidential candidate won the endorsement of gnomish kingmaker Ron Paul, their motto is “Life. Liberty. Limited Government.” So far, so good. Then you read their platform.

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In case you didn’t know, this week was “National Coming Out Week”, leading up to “National Coming Out Day”, which falls on October 11 of every year. To commemorate National Coming Out Week, the University’s LGBTQA held a celebration in the EMU amphitheater on Tuesday, part of which was a balloon arch floating across the street in front of Collier House.

Unfortunately for the LGBTQA, some asshole decided to climb up the lamppost where the balloons were tied and cut them free, sending somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 balloons drifting off into the sky. No matter how you want to slice it, that was a pretty dick move.

I found the LGBTQA’s response to the incident to be pretty disappointing. Throwing around unfounded and unprovable charges of homophobia and bias seems to have been the first and only thing in their playbook:

LGBTESSP Program Assistant Cat McGraw, who stayed in the amphitheater for most of the morning and early-afternoon, said because of the nature of the climate on campus, she would consider the incident an act of bias.

[…]

McGraw said she believes the timing of the act was deliberate because other University organizations have had balloon arches in the same place. She said the person clearly ruined the arch to make a statement. 

I have to disagree with Ms. McGraw, here. The only thing that’s “clear” is that someone felt like cutting loose 300 balloons. Maybe that person was motivated by fear and disgust of gay people, maybe not. Unless she has supernatural powers, I’m reasonably sure Ms. McGraw has no idea whether a “statement” was intended or not.

[Homecoming Weekend Committee Member Amber] Garrison said that given the nature of the campus’ history, she believes this was an act of intolerance.

“It was hard for me not to believe it was a hate crime or an act of bias.”

First off, calling this a “hate crime” is patently absurd in any case. Secondly, no other possible explanation besides “bias” comes to mind? Not drugs or alcohol? Not stupid college kids acting like stupid college kids? Not just indiscriminate vandalism?

The predilection to denounce outright and in the strongest terms accomplishes little, I think, except to reinforce and perpetuate a victim mentality. It betrays a mindset that imagines the whole world to be engaged in a pernicious conspiracy and that every setback is the result of hatred and bias. In actuality, it might’ve be as simple as someone being an asshole.

The same dynamic is in play in the 2008 election. We’ve been assured, time and time again, that the only reason Barack Obama could possibly lose the election is because of racism. Criticism of Obama is routinely cast as being “racially tinged“, even when race has nothing to do with the matter at hand. “Racist subtexts” are found everywhere, and “coded racism” seems to be all over the place.

While wallowing in such paranoia might rally the faithful, it does little to draw support from third parties, who’re implicitly being told that if they engage in criticism of such-and-such candidate they’re motivated by racial prejudice. The same thing applies to gay rights. I’m a strong supporter of equality for homosexuals under the law, but I’m consistently turned off by the siege mentality of the LGBTQA.

Bad things happen to lots of people every day and most of the time those bad things aren’t motivated by bias or phobia. The person who wrecked the balloon arch might’ve been a homophobe. He could just as well have been high or drunk. Neither Cat McGraw or Amber Garrison — nor anyone else except for the person who did it — actually know what was going through his head.

Unfortunately, they chose to act like victims of persecution instead of standing up, saying “fuck you”, and getting on with life.

It looks like there was a happy conclusion to Mark Steyn’s ongoing legal problems in Canada, as the case against him has been dismissed :

VANCOUVER - The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal ruled Friday that a controversial article about Islam in Maclean’s magazine did not violate the province’s hate speech law.

[…]

 The Canadian Islamic Congress, which brought the complaint, has previously failed in two other jurisdictions: Ontario, which said it did not have jurisdiction over printed material; and federally, where the complaint was rejected as without merit.

With the publication of The Jewel of Medina earlier in the week and now the dismissal of the charges against Mark Steyn, this has shaped up to be a pretty good week for anyone who’s tired of seeing zealots using the courts and the threat of violence to stifle speech that is supposedly “offensive” to their religion. You can read more, including a PDF of the actual decision over at Mark Steyn’s website (sorry, no permalinks).

(H/T: Instapundit. I’ve previously written about this here and here.)

A couple days ago the Oregonian ran a follow-up on a story that’s been brewing for a while. The Lake Oswego City Council is drafting an asinine definition of what constitutes a journalist. The brewhaha started when a blogger for Loaded Orygun attempted to sit in on a closed executive session of the city council. Normally, journalists in Oregon are privy to these meetings, although under the agreement that they don’t report on them.

The Lake Oswego City Council wasn’t happy about some uppity blogger trying to horn in on their meeting, hence the proposed definition. This is the current draft of the city council’s requirements to be “a journalist:”

• Regular reporting on the Lake Oswego City Council

• Multiple personnel with defined roles

• Registration with the state Corporation Division

• Reporting “conducted continuously (at least weekly) and permanently”

• Publications or broadcasts that include “at least 25 percent news content”

• Media representatives would be allowed to attend executive sessions if they provide evidence that includes “proof satisfactory to the City Council that the person is gathering news,” along with a press badge, a recently published news article with their byline or an editor’s note on letterhead.

Even worse news from the Big O:

To avoid a patchwork of different city or county media policies, the Legislature might have to enact a clearer definition of “media,” said Paul Nolte, legal services program consultant for the League of Oregon Cities.

Journalists and proponents of free speech should find any attempt by government to define “journalist” unsettling. The first step to regulating and prohibiting is to define. Without a proper definition, it’s hard for the government to get its slimy tentacles around something (to wit: the Supreme Court’s sisyphean attempts to define obscenity).

Also consider: I fulfill almost all of these requirements as a reporter for the Oregon Commentator, yet I’m pretty sure I’m the exact type of person the Lake Oswego City Council (or some similar body) doesn’t want sitting in on their executive sessions. Once they figured that out, there would no doubt be even stricter requirements.

The article also quotes UO journalism professor Kyu Youm, who is a damn fine First Amendment scholar:

“Sometimes, bloggers are now able to provide some wonderful sources of information in addition to what the public may find in the traditional news media,” he said. “I think the information gatherers should not be limited to the traditional media.”

* Headline quote by Sean Scully, freelance journalist

A few months ago the State Attorney General intervened to put the brakes on RIAA demands that the University of Oregon pass along identifying information about a number of students suspected of engaging in illegal file-sharing. Unfortunately, it looks as if a judge has stepped in and sided with the recording industry, allowing the RIAA to once again try to force the U of O to give up the information.

As ArsTechnica makes clear, just having an IP that is associated with a given computer’s MAC address is not a sure-fire way of identifying a user:

Only one of the students flagged by MediaSentry for offering files for download lived in a single-occupancy dorm room. Five lived in a double-occupancy room, while nine were on the university’s wireless network.

Nevertheless, it seems likely that the students in question could be paying hefty price for (alleged) copyright infringement, even though the RIAA “says it’s not trying to bully students by jacking up the settlement cost” from $4,000 to $8,000. I know I believe them.

No doubt that by now everyone has heard that Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin’s Yahoo e-mail account(s) were cracked and the contents thereof distributed on the Internet. The whole imbroglio has got both Team Red and Team Blue riled up, and I’ve got a few thoughts on the affair.

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From the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Some students at the 14 universities in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education are fuming over a decision announced by their chancellor last week. On Wednesday, the day before a state law that prohibits smoking in any public place in Pennsylvania took effect, Chancellor John Cavanaugh informed them that the ban would be enforced everywhere on the system’s campuses, even outdoors.

I’m sure all the nannies in the Oregon State Board of Higher Education are stroking their chins thoughtfully.

As always with Barr, better late than never:

As both a U.S. Attorney and Member of Congress, I defended drug prohibition. But it has become increasingly clear to me, after much study, that our current strategy has not worked and will not work.

…

 It is obvious that, like Prohibition’s effort to eradicate alcohol usage, drug prohibition has not succeeded. Despite enormous law enforcement efforts — including the dedicated service of many thousands of professional men and women — the government has not halted drug use.

…

Whether we like it or not, tens of millions of Americans have used and will continue to use drugs.

Steve Chapman at Reason nails it:

Republicans are big on promoting freedom abroad, but in this country, the term encompasses a lot of things they don’t like—the right to a “homosexual lifestyle,” the right to protest the Iraq war, the right to privacy, the right not to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, and more. Conservatives who once thought Americans had too little freedom now sometimes think they have too much.

Liberals, on the other hand, are wary of embracing freedom precisely because of its historic importance to the right. They fear it means curbing the power of a government whose reach they want to expand.

While they value many personal liberties, they have no great attachment to forms of freedom that involve buying, selling, trading, and accumulating. Those, after all, can involve selfishness, and Democrats, like Republicans, don’t want to protect selfishness.

But freedom isn’t freedom without the right to pursue what you value—money or knowledge, pleasure or sacrifice, God or atheism, community or misanthropic solitude—rather than what others think you should value. It includes the right to go to hell, and the right to tell others to do the same.

The latter is a valuable prerogative that we have not yet lost. After watching the conventions, if you have the urge to use it on either of the two major parties, feel free.

I know I will be, and for these very reasons.