Greetings, HuffPost readers.
Since I've been blogging here for a few weeks now, and we've gotten all the kinks ironed out, I thought I'd formally introduce myself. I started my blog The Agitator almost 12 years ago. We're now moving it here, although the archives will stay at the old place.
I've been at HuffPost for about a year-and-a-half now. I do investigative journalism and write reported columns on civil liberties and the criminal justice system. I came here from Reason magazine, and before that from the Cato Institute. (Yes, this means my politics are libertarian.) I wrote about the same general issues at both of those places. I also started a little side project here at HuffPost called Nashville Byline, a blog about about music and culture in Nashville, where I live. That project was derailed a bit when I got an offer to write a book. I'm hoping to pick it up again now that I've finished the manuscript.
Oh, and about that. I'm writing a book. It's called Rise of the Warrior Cop, and it will be out this spring. As you might guess from the title, it's about police militarization. In the coming months, I'll be promoting the hell out of it, and regularly bugging you to buy it.
On this blog, you can expect heavy emphasis on issues like police abuse, prosecutorial abuse, forensics, wrongful convictions, the drug war, and general criminal justice and broader civil liberties issues. I'll also post links and offer commentary on other items that I find interesting, many of which will have nothing to do with those issues. Most of my original reporting will appear on the HuffPost main site.
I also do a little amateur photography. I had a "photo of the day" feature on my old site. I plan to revive that here, starting with some of my favorites from over the years. You'll also quickly learn that I'm a "dog person" (see below). As for other recurring themes and Agitator traditions, I'm sure you'll catch on.
Welcome.
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Google: AZ Secy of State - Legislative filings - 2012. At least one of the laws is cut and pasted. I am also curious about signing pages on all the bills, but haven't had time to take it apart. In El Mirage, they can conduct meetings over the phone.They have DRE's (7 wks of training), precedence over doctors. There is a yr window to charge anyone, 10 yr window to bring a crime forward from another state, up the anit. They have a metabolite law here and taking even cold medication puts you at risk. 2 docs could make no sense of AZ's tox reports. The corruption here vast, hard to see any middle, police authority. As of Oct, 2012, traffic school plus a mini mental eval, best I can call it. Information that I have is extensive. Wikipedia Jan Brewer, Joe Arpio, Russel Pierce, Ready. Interesting read. AZ and FL proposed a reduction in min wage by 3 dollars. Blow, NYT, on the Louisiana Prisons, all about social injustice. Orwell, Huxley, we are here. I experienced it and I am white, no drugs, no criminal history. Just is anymore.
Freedom is liberty in the presence of others. Liberty is simply maximizing what is best for you. We need liberty with respect for others. Not selfish pursuit of what is best for ME as promoted by Ayn Rand.
I am way more conservative than you, but in the context of others too.
Here's just two, of many, examples of how some die hard libertarians do not question their beliefs, and the stories used to justify their actions, any more than Liberals or Conservatives.
Ron Paul said we did not need to help Katrina victims. He said New Orleans and Galveston were rebuilt ONLY by it's residents after the Hurricanes in the 1920s and 1930s. What an ignorant thing to say. When New Orleans struck people of color were under a system of peonage. Look it up. Held at gun point and kept in barb wired concentration camps and forced to rebuild New Orleans for free; for most of a decade. Really!
Galveston is another different system of peonage. People of color were conscripted into the US military at gun point, and not given guns. The 10 feet of sand the Paul brags about the citizens putting on the island was done by these captured people for free. The smell and disease was so bad no white person did it. Bodies were placed on barges; taken out to sea by people of color. No white person did this work. Bodies washed back on shore these same people took them out and dumped them again.
Liberty? Obvious that these people of color had No freedom. Is this the Liberty we want? Most of us want FREEDOM.
Now bring it!
Just a little tradition we have around here.