Category Archives: rights

Fruits of Defunding

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…of police departments. Shootings and homicides are up sharply with less law enforcement possible under reduced budgets and associated police resignations and retirements.

The New York Police Department reported 137 shootings from October 1 to October 31, compared to the 62 reported during the same period last year, newly released statistics show.
…
There have been 387 murders so far this year, compared to the 282 reported in the first 10 months of 2019….

And Chicago:

There have been 655 murders this year through October 31, while the city had 431 during the same period in 2019—a 51% increase. …
At least 3,465 people were shot in Chicago through October 31 this year, a 56% increase from 2019….

Los Angeles:

“As of this morning, here today in the city, we’ve had 261 homicides,” LAPD Captain Ahmad Zarekani said Wednesday. “That is a 25% increase from last year at this point.”

But it’s a good idea, says the Left, to defund police departments.

Sure.

Free Speech

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During last week’s Senate Commerce Committee hearings on Facebook’s, Alphabet’s, and Twitter’s seeming censorship of speech of which those entities’ MFWICS—Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, and Jack Dorsey—disapprove, Senator Ed Markey (D, MA) said this:

The issue is not that these companies before us today are taking too many posts down. The issue is that they are leaving too many dangerous posts up.

This, from the Senator who also said this about the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett:

Originalism is racist. Originalism is sexist. Originalism is homophobic. Originalism is just a fancy word for discrimination.

This is the assault on freedom of speech—on our Constitution—we can expect from a Progressive-Democrat-controlled Congress and White House.

Turkey’s Erdoğan

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In Turkey, this Cover Page of the Charlie Hebdo publication would be a crime because Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is afraid of ridicule (the headline caption translates as “In private, he’s very funny”). In France and much of the West, it’s a matter of free speech and free press. Here, too.

The joke is on Erdoğan. Or he is the joke. You pick ’em.

Labor Rights

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Whose rights are they, anyway?

Last Thursday, a California First Appellate District court upheld a State district court’s order that Uber and Lyft must reclassify their gig drivers as actual employees and so must add to their labor costs with benefits, paid leave of various sorts, payroll taxes, and so on. Never mind that this will reduce gig-oriented companies’ ability to recover from the State’s Wuhan Virus-related lockdowns and cost thousands of Californians access to additional income.

The time is fast approaching when it’ll be most useful for Uber, Lyft, and other gig-oriented businesses to leave California altogether.

It gets worse. As Uber noted in part,

…rideshare drivers will be prevented from continuing to work as independent contractors….

Indeed. The California court’s order (and AB5, the State statute that originally levied the classification requirement) go far beyond restricting gig-oriented businesses.

They’re attacks on gig workers themselves by denying them control over their own labor and the price and other parameters under which they’re willing to market their labor. The ruling and the statute convert those who wish to work in California into labor wards of the State’s government.

Almost like they’re State plantation laborers. But it’s all good, though; it’s for the workers’ own good.

The court’s opinion can be read here.