Tearful Atlanta Cops Express Remorse for Shooting 92-Year-Old Kathryn Johnston, Leaving Her To Bleed to Death in Her Own Home While They Planted Drugs in Her Basement, Then Threatening an Informant So He Would Lie To Cover It All Up
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This is what happens when you declare “war” on American citizens. You dehumanize them. And you instill an ends-justifies-the-means, win at all costs mindset in your “warriors.” This mindset infected the entire narcotics unit at Atlanta PD. You’d have to be awfully naive to believe the problem is limited to Atlanta.
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Kathryn Johnston’s death is tragic. But the real tragedy here is that had the cops found a stash of marijuana in her basement that actually did belong to her–say for pain treatment or nausea–her death would have faded quickly from the national news, these tactics would have been deemed by most to be wholly legitimate, and we probably wouldn’t still be talking about her today.

These cops were evil. But they worked within an evil system that’s not only immoral on its face, but is rife with bad incentives and plays to the worst instincts in human nature.¹

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…the Harvard Law School is having a conference to analyze the “free market mindset.” The basic premise of the conference seems to be that people who believe in limited government are psychologically troubled.

The conference schedule features presentations such as “How Thinking Like an Economist Undermines Community” and “Addicted to Incentives: How the Ideology of Self Interest Can Be Self-Fulfilling.” The most absurd presentation, though, may be the one entitled, “Colossal Failure: The Output Bias of Market Economies.” According to the description, the author argues that the market “delivers excessive levels of consumption.” Damn those entrepreneurs for creating so much wealth!²

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While the immediate causes of the various bushfires are thought to include arson, discarded cigarette butts, faulty power lines, or lightning strikes, these initial fires transformed into huge infernos and spread uncontrollably across Victoria only because of extremely high fuel loads throughout the state’s bushland. The reason? For years, local governments have neglected to manage fire hazards on their land in order to be faithful to the principles of environmentalism — a philosophy that contends that nature has intrinsic value that must be preserved, regardless of any use it has to man.[6] The result has been that people have sacrificed their prosperity and even survival in an attempt to preserve the unspoiled sanctity of nature.³

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Würde man das Urheberrecht – d.h. das Prinzip des Geistigen Eigentums, d.h. Ideen als Eigentum anzusehen und das “Kopieren” einer Idee (was nichts anderes darstellt als das, was Kunst und Kultur, ja unsere ganze Zivilisation ausmacht: Imitation) unter Strafe zu stellen – konsequent auslegen, so müsste man auch Tanzschritte kopierrechtlich schützen. Jemand, der sich eine neue Choreographie ausdenkt, einen neuen Tanz, müsste das alleinige Recht haben, diese Tanz aufzuführen oder aufführen zu lassen. Nachtanzen wäre nicht erlaubt.⁴

1. Radley Balko – Tearful Atlanta Cops Express Remorse for Shooting 92-Year-Old Kathryn Johnston, Leaving Her To Bleed to Death in Her Own Home While They Planted Drugs in Her Basement, Then Threatening an Informant So He Would Lie To Cover It All Up [↩]
2. Daniel J. Mitchell – Is Libertarianism a Sign of Mental Illness? [↩]
3. Ben O’Neill – The Victorian Bushfires: How Environmentalism Leads to Disaster [↩]
4. Stephan Kinsella – Copyrighting Dance Steps–The Death of Choreography [↩]