“At this point in this struggle, it’s the so-called patriots who are the ones who are smashing down every American institution,” Jones said last weekend in Milwaukee. “It’s the so-called patriots, the ones who come out here with their Tea Party and the flags and call themselves patriots — they’re the ones that are smashing down our unions, smashing down public education, smashing down every American institution that we built, and our parents built, and our grandparents built to make this country great.”

As is the wont of the statist, Van Jones confuses the country for its government, and America’s institutions for government bureaucracies. The institutions that truly make America great – the families, the churches, and the businesses – are not administered by appointed lackeys, nor found in federal budgets. They come from free peoples allowed to flourish relatively unencumbered by overbearing governments.

I’m not even going to try to reproduce the exemplary work of others in this case, but instead will get you pointed in the right direction.

The intimidation campaign

• Patterico – Convicted Bomber Brett Kimberlin, Neal Rauhauser, Ron Brynaert, and Their Campaign of Political Terrorism
• The Other McCain – Brett Kimberlin Saga Takes a Bizarre Turn, Forcing Me to Leave Maryland
• Right Wing News – Interviewing Robert Stacy McCain About Brett Kimberlin
• Allergic to Bull – How Brett Kimberlin Tried to Frame Me for a Crime (And How You Can Help!)

The background

• The Blaze – Meet Soros-Funded Domestic Terrorist Brett Kimberlin Whose ‘Job’ Is Terrorizing Bloggers Into Silence
• Capital Research Center – Nonprofit of terrorist bomber received Tides Foundation funding
• Big Government – Progressives Embrace Convicted Terrorist
• Liberal Terrorist Pal – Who is Brett Kimberlin?

How to help

• Michelle Malkin – Free speech blogburst: Show solidarity for targeted conservative bloggers
• National Bloggers Club – Kimberlin Files: Donate to support bloggers under attack

Nearly half of the Republicans serving in the New York State Assembly have proposed legislation that would ban anonymous online comments.

If enacted, the legislation would require websites — including social networks and online newspapers — to remove all anonymous comments that are brought to the attention of administrators.

An anonymous comment could remain if the author “agrees to attach his or her name to the post and confirms that his or her IP address, legal name, and home address are accurate.”

This awful idea is an affront to the very notion of free speech, and Wired humorously but devastatingly notes that this legislation would have banned the pseudonymous Federalist Papers from being distributed online.

The arguments given by the bills supporters are the legislative equivalent of burning down a house to kill termites. Consider this:

Republican state Assemblyman Jim Conte praised the legislation, writing that it would eliminate “mean-spirited and baseless political attacks that add nothing to the real debate.”

The legislation would “demand that those who spread rumor, conjecture or outright lies online be willing to come forward and defend the comments they post,” Republican Assemblywoman Claudia Tenney added. “We, as a society, have never expected anything less when potentially harmful words are put into print.”

But there are already satisfactory remedies to all of these supposed problems. The answer to bad speech is good speech. Mean-spirited and baseless attacks can be countered with fact-based rebuttals. Harmful lies, meanwhile, are covered under slander and libel laws, and even anonymous users can today be compelled to be revealed if they cross legal lines. There is, in other words, no rational basis for the legislation even if we ignore the issue of its unconstitutional and liberty-restricting nature.

Thanks to new, cutting edge technology I have tapped into Joe’s brain and extracted just such imagination in lyrical form:

Imagine there’s no Tea Party,
It’s easy if you try.
No investigations for us,
Our only limits are the sky.
Imagine all the Keynesians
Spending for today.

Imagine there’s no elections,
It isn’t hard to do.
Nobody to elect or vote for,
And no Constitution too.
Imagine all the bureaucrats
Dictating life in peace.

You may say Old Joe’s a socialist,
But I’m not the only one.
Someday you’ll be forced to join us,
And the Party will be as one.

Imagine no free choices,
I wonder if you can.
No need for self-reliance,
Julia’s life is in our hands.
Imagine all the people,
Sharing Obama’s stash.

You may say I’m a schemer,
But I’m not the only one.
I know someday you’ll join us,
And we’ll all worship The One.

The consensus has been that this is another example of Obama’s narcissism. And while I largely consider him the most narcissistic president in our nation’s history (though I don’t profess to be a presidential historian, and have only personally lived under a few administrations), it isn’t my biggest takeaway from the story. In fact, it’s unlikely the President even had knowledge of the additions before they happened. At least, I can’t imagine a President being involved in all such minutia, but I’ve also never occupied nor worked in the White House.

What concerns me is the continued parallels, this being yet another in a long line of examples, between the whole apparatus surrounding Obama – his campaign and followers – and the behavior of tyrants. A common feature of dictatorships, for instance, is the erosion of the line between the individual leader and the state, and even the nation. He is the state. He is the nation. The two cannot be separated. This is why you see the faces of people like Saddam Hussein or Hugo Chavez plastered all over the place.

The leader’s presence is everywhere, not just within the nation, but also its history. The leader is tied into the very fabric of the nation’s history, often times through out-and-out revisionism, but also in more subtle ways, such as through carefully crafted narratives, either embellished or outright falsified, whereby the leader’s story becomes an archetype for the social and cultural values of his people.

Obama, in his attitudes toward governance, his policy preferences and the disposition of his followers, resembles more the typical South American strongman than an American Chief Executive. I do not worry that Obama is going to become a dictator in any real sense of the word, but the willingness of a certain sect of the population, namely his most ardent followers, to not only so readily accept these attitudes but to gleefully propagate them through their own initiative is concerning. It is not entirely surprising, as they are the folks who already ideologically lean toward collectivism, but it nonetheless highlights a disturbing strain of political thought in this country, and ought to remind us that freedom is only ever a generation away from extinction.

The reality is far different. The police are not benevolent protectors of your rights, and it amazes me that so many conservatives continue to delude themselves that only this one, single aspect of state power is exercised judiciously and almost entirely without malice, while rightfully acknowledging that the rest of the government skirts the line between incompetent and evil.

The truth is that many cops are just thugs with badges, granted license by the state to commit crime in its name.

In this latest case, a Monterey police officer took $22,000 off the driver — even though he had committed no crime.

“You live in the United States, you think you have rights — and apparently you don’t,” said George Reby.

As a professional insurance adjuster, Reby spends a lot of time traveling from state to state. But it was on a trip to a conference in Nashville last January that he got a real education in Tennessee justice.

…Reby was driving down Interstate 40, heading west through Putnam County, when he was stopped for speeding.

A Monterey police officer wanted to know if he was carrying any large amounts of cash.

“I said, ‘Around $20,000,’” he recalled. “Then, at the point, he said, ‘Do you mind if I search your vehicle?’ I said, ‘No, I don’t mind.’ I certainly didn’t feel I was doing anything wrong. It was my money.”

That’s when Officer Larry Bates confiscated the cash based on his suspicion that it was drug money.

“Why didn’t you arrest him?” we asked Bates.

“Because he hadn’t committed a criminal law,” the officer answered.

Bates said the amount of money and the way it was packed gave him reason to be suspicious.

“The safest place to put your money if it’s legitimate is in a bank account,” he explained. “He stated he had two. I would put it in a bank account. It draws interest and it’s safer.”

“But it’s not illegal to carry cash,” we noted.

“No, it’s not illegal to carry cash,” Bates said. “Again, it’s what the cash is being used for to facilitate or what it is being utilized for.”

NewsChannel 5 Investigates noted, “But you had no proof that money was being used for drug trafficking, correct? No proof?”

“And he couldn’t prove it was legitimate,” Bates insisted.

You have to prove to the state that your property is legitimate, or it will take it from you. Does that sound like a free, constitutional republic to you?

The story goes on to demonstrate how Officer Bates lied in his report, both by failing to note Reby’s explanation that he was looking to buy a car (which he actually could prove through computer records, demonstrating yet another Bates’ lie), and also in his description of where the money was located.

Reby eventually got his money back months later, no doubt only because of the negative publicity, though he was required to first waive his constitutional rights and then drive all the way back to Tennessee from New Jersey in order to get it. He received no apology.

Others are not so lucky and never see their property again. The Institute for Justice’s blockbuster 2010 report, “Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture,” finds that use of asset forfeiture is extensive at all levels of government. States pull in millions each year, while the US Department of Justice’s Assets Forfeiture Fund held more than $1 billion as of 2008.

Oh, and the same Officer Bates as tried to steal $20,000 from a law-abiding citizen by falsifying police reports was just honored by the Monterey Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 6277 as “Officer of the Year”.

Crime – it turns out – does pay, but only when you wear a badge.

Francois Hollande’s first official day as French president descended into farce today when he was soaked on the Champs Elysee and then his plane was hit by lightning.

The 57 year-old was inaugurated in a simple ceremony at the Elysee Palace in Paris, nine days after defeating the conservative Nicolas Sarkozy in a nationwide election.

But then everything started to go downhill for the committed Socialist who has styled himself as an ‘enemy’ of the world of finance.

During a ‘triumphant’ drive up France’s most famous avenue the heavens opened, and he was soaked in front of a live audience of millions.

Then, a few hours later, his plane was hit by lightning as he flew to Berlin for a crisis meeting about the imploding Eurozone with German chancellor Angela Merkel.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Avid texters beware: Fort Lee, N.J. police said they will begin issuing $85 jaywalking tickets to pedestrians who are caught texting while walking.

“It’s a big distraction. Pedestrians aren’t watching where they are going and they are not aware,” said Thomas Ripoli, chief of the Fort Lee Police Department.

Ripoli said the borough, which is home to approximately 35,000 residents, has suffered three fatal pedestrian-involved accidents this year. He hopes his crackdown on people who display dangerous behavior while walking will make his town safer…

They even pulled out the big guns, grabbing some hotshot college aca-deem-ics to “study” the problem.

Two professors at Stony Brook University in New York conducted a study on walking and texting. They found texters are 60 percent more likely to veer off line than non-texters.

I’m glad they settled the important question of whether people who don’t look where they are going are more likely not to walk straight. It was keeping me up all night.

Three pedestrians got themselves killed this year. Tragic, no doubt, but not cause for legislative action. First of all, how many pedestrians normally get killed? Were those three even on their phones? Alas, there was no real journalist around to ask the question.

This sort of social micro-management is unbecoming a free society, and probably has more to do with police budget shortfalls than an earnest effort to protect people. And even if it were born of good intentions, protecting people from themselves is no business of government. It is a waste of police resources to be nagging citizens into self-awareness.

In the article he links he is quoted as saying:

“The gigantic size of megabanks, and the perception in the marketplace that they are too big for the government ever to permit to fail, gives them an unfair competitive advantage over smaller financial institutions that distorts the market and discourages competition.” said Miller. “The lack of competition in the banking industry, in turn, leads to ever-higher levels of risk in the system.”

Here’s a thought. If the problem is the perception that banks will be bailed out, then stop bailing them out. But Brad Miller and the big government interventionists can’t say no. That’s a government problem, not a banking problem.

The article also says his legislation would “set a series of caps on the size and reach of the nation’s ‘megabanks.’” Given the glee with which politicians seek to kneecap any business that stands too tall, how about “a series of caps on the size and reach of the nation’s” federal government, instead?

Bake sales, the calorie-laden standby cash-strapped classrooms, PTAs and booster clubs rely on, will be outlawed from public schools as of Aug. 1 as part of new no-nonsense nutrition standards, forcing fundraisers back to the blackboard to cook up alternative ways to raise money for kids.

At a minimum, the nosh clampdown targets so-called “competitive” foods — those sold or served during the school day in hallways, cafeterias, stores and vending machines outside the regular lunch program, including bake sales, holiday parties and treats dished out to reward academic achievement. But state officials are pushing schools to expand the ban 24/7 to include evening, weekend and community events such as banquets, door-to-door candy sales and football games.

The heavy-handed, paternalistic rules are bad enough, but what really irks me is this mentality:

State Sen. Susan Fargo (D-Lincoln), chairwoman of the Joint Committee on Public Health, said the problem of overweight children has reached “crisis” proportions.

“If we didn’t have so many kids that were obese, we could have let things go,” Fargo said.

“But,” she added, “this is a major public health problem and these kids deserve a chance at a good, long healthy life.”

No, obesity is not a “public health problem,” it is an individual health problem. Public health problems exist when one persons sickness can make me sick or unhealthy. But one person being fat has no impact whatsoever on whether or not I am fat.

There is a related problem where I am expected to bear the cost of another’s health choices, but that doesn’t make it a public health issue, that just makes inherently unfair regulations requiring some to subsidize the healthcare of others, even when the cause of the need for care is based on choice.

What State Sen. Susan Fargo (D-Lincoln), chairwoman of the Joint Committee on Public Health, is doing is using one set of boneheaded policies put in place by people like State Sen. Susan Fargo (D-Lincoln), chairwoman of the Joint Committee on Public Health, in order to justify a further collectivized society, and more power in the hands of people like State Sen. Susan Fargo (D-Lincoln), chairwoman of the Joint Committee on Public Health. Funny how that works.