Libertarianism creep over at Slate. Welcome, gang. Your decoder rings should arrive in a few weeks.
Cops take a break from drug raid to bowl a few rounds on their suspect’s Wii.
Ugly look at the absurd union protections for teachers in New York City’s public school system.
Virginia Beach cop who won awards for his DWI arrest rate convicted of DWI after a hit and run.
Texas Supreme Court finds no reversible error in death penalty case in which the judge and prosecutor had an undisclosed sexual relationship.
Mark Cuban says federal government has made unpaid internships illegal. I’m pretty surprised by this, given that I know of several people who have had unpaid internships with the federal government. Including me, although that was back in 1997.
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on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009 at 12:29 pm by Radley Balko
and is filed under General Criminal Justice, Police Professionalism.
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TheAgitator.com
The solution to the unpaid internship is to also charge the interns for the training they receive.
If the govt prohibits unpaid internships, why can’t employers also charge the interns for the training they receive. Magically, it could be identical!
The internship problem is easily solved. Don’t hire unpaid interns–accept volunteer workers instead. :)
I’d *love* to see the media flak an AG (or the DoL) would get if they tried to say that it’s illegal to accept volunteers.
Regarding the Slate piece, here is my absolute favorite Radley quote:
”Certainly this was a case of bad judgment,” Auburndale Police Chief Nolan McLeod said.
Certainly this was a case of unprofessional backwoods dickwads pretending to be law enforcement.
Playing Wii was stupid, but when it comes to police work, those cops are great! No no-knock for them, they just waited till the guy went out to the quickie mart and took him without incident. Certainly a model for all of law enforcement. I hope these people get to stay on the job in their present positions.
“In what Judd called ‘brilliant police work,’ the task force placed Difalco under surveillance and took him into custody, away from his home and weapons, during the early morning hours of March 6, in the parking lot of a Circle K convenience store on Highway 98.”
In the end, the judge convicted Womble of DUI and Hit and Run. He sentenced the officer to five days in jail, suspended his driver’s license for 12 months, gave him a $250 fine and ordered him to enroll in an alcohol safety awareness program.
Ah, justice for the badges. Nothing like being held to a higher standard. Strike 2 for the po-po today.
Yes, what Carl said. Please, please, forward this article to every police department with a SWAT team in the world.
Again:
“We knew he was dangerous, so we took him into custody away from his home.”
This is what we’ve been saying!
In countries where Socialists or Communists run the schools, the population is quite fond of Socialism and Communism. In countries where unions run the schools…
From the Slate article…
“It isn’t God who hates fags. It’s Michael Bloomberg.”
That is the quote of the day for me.
Officer Womble cried through much of the bench trial as fellow officers testified against him.
Wait a second. That can’t be right. That’s so unlikely that it doesn’t even happen in fiction.
I had three unpaid internships with the Federal government during law school (2 with DOJ, one with DHS). I’m currently in charge of recruiting and selecting unapid interns for our [DOJ] office. Whoops.
The SWAT team took him at a convenience store because they knew he was armed to the teeth. If he didn’t have the arsenal, he probably be dead after they stormed his house…to play Wii
Second quote of the day…
“In Engber’s case, the provocation is scientific. To justify taxes on unhealthy food, the lifestyle regulators are stretching the evidence about obesity and addiction, two subjects on which Engber is burdened with contrary knowledge. Liberals like to talk about a Republican war on science, but it turns out that they’re just as willing to bend facts. In wars of piety, science has no friends.”
I’ve been preaching this for over a year now! Slate really is turning to the libertarian darkside!
I’d be shocked if it was found that the were no unpaid interns in the Whitehouse or Congress. This sounds like yet another case of the govenors exempting themselves from the laws they pass for the governed.
Given the fact that PD’s turn away potential recruits with IQs that are too high, I suppose I can see how something that most people would simply classify as common sense could be interpreted as an act of brilliance.
Shouldn’t the cops be charges with theft? After all did they have the owners permission to use his electricity to play video games?
Interns:
It is not all unpaid interships are illegal, it is unpaid interships that create something of value are illegal. So you can’t have a bunch of interns create your online/viral marketing for you.
We have interns working here all the time so it sounds like Cuban is being his typical whiner.
Soda Tax:
Why has no one of note picked up the idea of eliminating the farm subsidies to corn to increase the cost of sodas?
Absolutely disgusting. Officer Womble didn’t even lose his cop job for this nearly-deadly DUI incident. They reassigned him to desk duties.
And this creep is appealing his conviction now because he doesn’t want to serve his paltry 5 day jail sentence.
More irony: this same officer pulled over NFL legend Bruce Smith for DUI only a month prior. Smith, who did not hit anyone and did not flee the scene of the accident like Womble, got a 90 day jail sentence and a bigger fine.
At least Womble had to suffer the indignity of crying like a little girl in the courtroom.
Just to be clear, the government did not “make unpaid internships illegal” in the sense that this is a recent development. It is simply an interpretation of existing law (Fair Labor Standards Act) that is widely ignored. Whatever you think of the law, it’s pretty clear that most unpaid internships that don’t offer college credit are illegal.
Seems to me that libertarians ought to be okay with a ban on unpaid internships, just as they are okay with a ban on indentured servitude. Both involve people willingly working under a given set of conditions, and both are exploitative of the worker.
The government is exempt from most provisions of FLSA.
As to the “rubber rooms” for NYC teachers, I’m sure there are some incompetent teachers enjoying a union-enforced asylum. Nevertheless, the union isn’t the root cause; public schooling is.
Once you forgo the profit motive, there is no objective way of running an enterprise. If schools were in competition for the dollars of students (or their parents), then whoever was running the school would have incentive to keep good teachers and ditch bad ones, irrespective of personal politics.
In public schools, however, since it is much more difficult to hold anyone accountable, and there is no profit or loss, there is very little to counteract personal politics. If a principal doesn’t like a teacher, for whatever reason, that teacher would have very little recourse. His career would be over in that school, and he would likely not be able to transfer to another.
Something like the teachers’ union is a defense against the petty tyranny found in bureaucracy. Be as critical of the unions as you wish — they deserve it. But save some energy for the system itself. It is broken by design.
Too. Much. Outrage!
PW, Officer Womble is most likely not appealing his sentence because of the five day jail term, but because the conviction will make future employment difficult. Further, many if not most police forces require their employees to maintain a valid license to drive, and failure to do so results in dismissal. So, hopefully he will lose his appeal and then his job.
“It’s the left that’s turning conservative. Well, not conservative, but pushy.”
YES! Well said, Mr. Saletan. Stories like this make me giddy. I’m glad to see some of my fellow lefties coming around on this stuff. Could a Left-leaning strain of libertarianism, or at least a return to a truer form of liberalism, come out of discussions like this? I’m not sure, but I’m doing my part to encourage it!
Full disclosure: I come from a Progressive background (during and after college), and was even a dues paying member of the Democratic Socialists of America for a couple years. But I never stopped thinking and questioning–and that’s crucial. I decided that ultimately, even “democratic socialism” would require too much government intervention for my tastes. No, I didn’t cry any tears for large corporations or America’s aristocrats (yes, we have those). I thought about my neighborhood grocery store and other traditional family businesses and partnerships, and how they would be effected by socialism. I wondered why people even at my modest income level paid such a substantial sum for their Federal Income Tax. I looked at the issues from every angle imaginable. After a while, I just couldn’t justify being a socialist anymore.
Wrapping up, thanks to Radley, Reason, and many of you right here on The Agitator for helping me to evolve politically. Thanks to you good folks, I can say for sure that I’m not a political hack. That doesn’t mean I subscribe to your particular version of libertarianism; I happen to think the freedom movement has Left and Right flanks.
“Ah, justice for the badges. Nothing like being held to a higher standard. Strike 2 for the po-po today.” — #7 Mike Leatherwood
Actually, that’s a pretty standard DUI charge around here, except that he’s not getting any “first-time offender” slack. I was pretty glad to see that they at least didn’t let it slide like you see so often, especially since I live in Virginia Beach.
20
Umm no, libertarians should not have a problem with unpaid internships. As a principle, libertarians are fine with free individuals engaging in contracts where all parties are sufficiently informed as to the terms of that contract.
As someone who has done both paid and unpaid internships, I can say that it is a mixture of training and work. In an unpaid internship, I basically paid for my training through my labour. I had no problem with this, and I do not regret it (it actually turned out to be a great investment).
As for the argument that unpaid internships discriminate against the less wealthy, this is true, in the same way that most things discriminate against the less wealthy (would Bill Gates have dropped out of Harvard to found Microsoft had he not had his parental cushion to fall back on?). If the less wealthy unpaid intern values their training above the temporary value of their labour, then they should take out a loan to cover that period, much as many do with their education. If not, then it simply suggests that employers who offer unpaid internships end up with substandard paid employees subsequent, and that there is a business opportunity to deliver a better product than them using paid interns.
The second paragraph in my previous should not have been in the blockquote.
Once again this HTML tyro pleads for a preview function at The Agitator.
I don’t see how an unpaid internship doesn’t violate the minimum wage law.
Regarding the Wii cops: at least if they’re playing video games they’re not illegally cuffing ER nurses for not getting a DUI blood sample fast enough…
Regarding the soda tax, for the vast majority of drinks, it would be an offset for government-subsidized corn syrup. The tax, combined with the subsidy, would be an inefficient and round-about way of getting closer to the true “market price” for carbonated corn syrup.
“Could a Left-leaning strain of libertarianism, or at least a return to a truer form of liberalism, come out of discussions like this”
There’s plenty of these out there Helmut. Sometimes they’re called “cosmotarians”. I used to be one, then I changed my mind about guns. Now I’m a full-blown libertarian and moving to Vermont :)
I don’t know of any “cosmotarians” who are opposed to guns.
In fact, the Heller case was brought by a bunch of Cato folk — often referred to (derisively) as cosmotarian.
Far as I know, everyone at Reason is pro-gun, pro-Second Amendment. Hell, we ran a cover story last year on why it should be legal to own a bazooka.
Actually, it’s not well-said. The statement betrays an ignorance of recent history that can only be described as mind-boggling.
I’ve pointed out for a long time that Communism, as implemented in the real world, is as much a right-wing phenomenon as it is left-wing (looking at it from the POV of the US), it’s just that the left loves the forced equality aspect so much they’re willing to ignore the rest of it.
Communists still outlaw drugs, prostitution, the whole lot of it. You’d find that your normal moralist has as much in common with them as not.
But the bottom line is that both the left and the right want to force their worldview on you using the force of the government.
Owning my own bazooka.
I need to subscribe to Reason.
I need to subscribe to Reason.
You really do. It’s all the good articles without reading the angry commentary on the Hit-and-Run page.
Drug dealer for the WIN!
I gotta think that in light of Cuban’s recent run ins with the gubmint there would be immediate action taken against him under the labor laws if he tried unpaid interns. Based on what I’ve read of the SEC filings against him somehow he’s pissed off the ruling class enough that there won’t be any ignoring of labor law, turning a “blind eye” or any blind justice in his case. I don’t know much about him but I would guess he’s violated the same law as Microsoft in not sharing his cash with politicians the way they want.
And I agree with the statement above that because it’s a matter of voluntary contract, unpaid interns should be allowed. For the same reason I think minimum wage laws are unjust.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=27162
If this is actually true, it is the funniest damn thing I have heard in a very long time.
When I was in high school I was told by a radio station that I had to receive class credits or get paid in order to intern there (and they wouldn’t pay me since they’d have to pay minimum wage). So, I did the logical thing and forged class credit papers. Every month for a year the program director filled out evaluations for me that I subsequently dumped in the garbage.
“Cops take a break from drug raid to bowl a few rounds on their suspect’s Wii.”
That was an amazing article! There was more hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth by the police spokespeople over playing a Wii than if they had killed someone!
I have a Wii. If I’m ever raided, I’ll let the SWAT team know I have one and maybe they’ll go easy on me!
#40 | Lee
Not funny. ENCOURAGING. But I’m not holding my breath.
As for Slate, the question is not, as their headline indicates, “Why Are Liberals Getting So Stupid About Science?” It’s “Why Is Slate Getting So Stupid In Its Political Labeling?” I am really not clear why those backing soft-drink taxes get labeled “liberal,” except that self-described “conservatives” sometimes oppose these measures (i.e., so the proponents must be “liberal”). This is a great example of Slate’s modus operandi: take a marginal issue, hype it, and then write pick a counterintuitive approach in criticizing it. That’s basically all that Mickey Kaus has done with his life.
Regarding the interns issue: As someone wrote above, Cuban should quit the damn whining. Is he seriously suggesting that he’s so poor that he can’t pay some kid the minimum wage for his “internship”? Maybe the minimum wage laws don’t fit his situation to a “T,” but it seems to me they are likely to protect other employees in other situations from being exploited. That’s assuming, of course, that you think the minimum wage laws are a good idea, which is not a safe assumption here.
Ben,
I covered the obesity issue when I was at Cato, and my experience is that there’s a strong anti-market, anti-commerce component to the public health movement. And it’s public health activists who are pushing this stuff. Kelly Brownell, Marion Nestle & Co. would definitely be described as well left of center.
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