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Kalona, IA – we love us some mission creep.
> Write your own joke.
> Former ACLU director Nadine Strossen talks to Cato about First Amendment hypocrisy.
I don’t want to dwell on constitutional analysis, because our view has never been that civil liberties are necessarily coextensive with constitutional rights. Conversely, I guess the fact that something is mentioned in the Constitution doesn’t necessarily mean that it is a fundamental civil liberty.
Kalona, Iowa…officially the most unconstitutional town in America. Every official there should be charged with false imprisonment.
Ay, there’s the rub! What dreams may come when we have shuffled off!
Th O’Reilly story reminds me of
this posted by A Sullivan yesterday about Irving Kristol:
Irving recalled how he talked to his friend Harvey Mansfield at Harvard, who secured William a place there as both an undergrad and graduate student; how he talked to Pat Moynihan, then Nixon’s domestic policy adviser, and got William an internship at the White House; how he talked to friends at the RNC [Republican National Committee] and secured a job for William after he got his Harvard Ph.D.; and how he arranged with still more friends for William to teach at Penn and the Kennedy School of Government.
“With that, Prof. Katznelson recalled, he then asked Irving what he thought of affirmative action. ‘I oppose it,’ Irving replied. ‘It subverts meritocracy.’ ”
Also, WTF Kalona!?!?
The only problem with the rub-on Viagra is you won’t be able to bend your fingers for four hours.
Re: Kalona
At least they had the good sense to let go of the couple who was on their way to the hospital, in other locales that might be good for an assault from an officer like that EMT.
Nonetheless, while I’m sure this all sounded like a cute and clever idea on paper, it’s just way too difficult to be lighthearted about it, given the daily stories about cops abusing their authority for not-so-cute-and-clever means.
Regarding the rub-on Viagra, the article says that the tested it on rats.
How the heck did they do that? And who got the job of rubbing the stuff on teeny-tiny rat penises?
#9
There’s an episode idea for “Dirty Jobs”
#9
Really teeny-tiny hookers?
(and I wonder how you include “Rat Fluffer” on a resume)
I’m holding out for Viagra Rub-On Cream for Women.
Bill O’Reilly is a product of Operation Mockingbird.
Wanna start a pool to name the date that Kalona, IA is sued? Reminds me of the cases where towns pulled over good drivers and gave them Starbucks gift certificates. Puh-leeze leave me the fuck alone.
Regarding the Cato/Strossen interview at about 4:30 or so there is a comment about whether it might have made more sense for the Kennedy to declare that nude dancing isn’t covered by the First Amendment rather than cite secondary adverse effects as sufficient justification to outlaw the activity.
First, the idea that nude dancing could be excluded from First Amendment protection, while declaring other kinds performance art covered, shows a gaping inconsistency in one’s philosophy and a total corruption of in one’s interpretation of what constitutes human expression. There is just no possible way that someone can rationally conclude that First Amendment protection hinges on whether the actor is nude or dressed, nor is it any less expression just because it’s likely to elicit a sexual response.
Secondly, it’s ludicrous to suggest that the possibility of adverse secondary affects is sufficient grounds to abrogate the Bill of Rights. If that is all it takes to to bypass the First Amendment, then no expression is safe (which, of course, it isn’t).
Regardless of the fact that they occasionally rule in a way that seems to benefit the public, none of the members of the Supreme Court is a friend to citizens.
What is the problem with nudity anyway? I grew up in an environment where public nudity was common. Everybody just walked down to the river and stripped to take a bath. I have seen all shapes and sizes and ages and nobody cared.
A hot babe showing lots of over-exaggerated cleavage in a dress would attract my attention more than some average nude person shopping at wall-mart. It’s the “hotness” not the nudity that makes me look.
One of the perspectives common to the art world (as well as the public at large), is the belief that nudity in art is acceptable only if it isn’t sexual. If it is sexual, then it’s smut. I would expect artists to be big supporters of free expression, no less than journalists. They’re not. Both journalists and artists seem to be only in favor of protections for the particular style of expression they themselves engage in.
Someday, it may occur to people that expression which portrays sexual topics is just as legitimate as any other kind of expression. As in all expression, the danger lies not in the art itself, but in the tiny minds of those viewers who insist that it be repressed because of their own self-centered narrow-minded prejudices.
In America, free expression is encouraged provided no one is offended by it.
This seems like a bad idea.
Kalona – In case you didn’t know, you’re in friggin’ IOWA. There is nothing in IOWA to see other than corn and pigs. You can see corn and pigs anywhere in IOWA.
Methinks Kalona has some inferiority complex issues to work out.
How do you possibly determine the effectives of topically applied Viagra?
But doc, the placebo works like a champ as well.
Recording industry interests now want royalties for free, 30-second samples on iTunes.
Quick, shoot yourself in the other foot.
I’d much rather see former ACLU director Nadine Strossen talk about the ACLU’s Second Amendment hypocrisy.
“Conservative group gives Bill O’Reilly “Media Courage Award.” O’Reilly then bans the media from his acceptance speech”
Exhibit number 1,000,000 in my on-going effort to prove that conservatives tend to lack an appreciation for irony.
DWIKI: Driving While In Kalona Iowa
Queue the dwikipedia jokes…
Hi Dave,
“the belief that nudity in art is acceptable only if it isn’t sexual. If it is sexual, then it’s smut.”
To me it is smut only if one of the participants seems unwilling. If everybody seems to be having fun, then I guess I am OK with just about anything.
#12 Put me down for October 2, 2009.
Recording industry interests now want royalties for free, 30-second samples on iTunes.
Not the recording industry, actually – the songwriting industry. The RIAA likes screwing them over too.
I’m glad to see the link about Kalona, IA I left on Radley’s Facebook page made it here. :)
When I stumbled across that article a couple days ago all I could think was WTF!? Kalona is a neat little town not far from Iowa City (Univ. of Iowa) with a strong Amish presence, but I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be pulled over to be sweet-talked into spending the night.
One link Radley didn’t publish was the one about two Washington State troopers that won’t face charges after clubbing seagulls to death: http://www.komonews.com/news/local/59662232.html
I can hardly wait until the Kalona, Iowa high speed chase video.
I really like the bit about the First Amendment, we are still very results oriented when it comes to free speech. Yes corporate influence on politics is corrosive, undemocratic and just generally awful, but its still free speech.
“Non-people” entities have always played a role in the national debates or local issues just the same. That was the design. Robust speech is its own end. And corporations produce nearly every book and movie today and no one would ever doubt those are protected speech.
[...] Via Radley Balko. [...]
Like I needed another excuse to avoid Iowa.
[...] in the order in which I saw it, Radley Balko, Popehat, and the Volokh Conspiracy I read about the fine town of Kalona, Iowa, where the local [...]
It puts the lotion on its skin or it gets limp again.