Tag Archives: rights

A Ban on Facial Recognition

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San Francisco is about to ban the use of facial recognition by city agencies.

I agree with the sentiment.

However, good luck enforcing this sort of ban. There’s also a general ban on lying under oath, but in the end, all perjury laws can do is attach liability to the lie; they can’t prevent the lying. The primary difference is that lying under oath is easier to detect than is using facial recognition, and so the ban on lying under oath is easier to enforce.

What’s needed more is the ability to detect the use of facial recognition.  Banning it and applying sanction to its illegal use, whether shaking the city’s finger very firmly at the misbehaver or applying heavy fines and serious jailtime, is an empty gesture without that.

Christianity is a Threat

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The Chinese Communist Party, through its provincial organ in Henan Province, says so.

The Hebi Municipal Radio Administrative Bureau [hosted] a presentation titled “Christianity’s Enormous Harm on China’s Security,” to party members in the city of Hebi….

Instructive title, that.  The seminarists insisted that the “correct view” is that Christianity (and, I suppose, religion generally), are bent on undermining the Communists’ rule.  Never mind that “render unto Caesar” bit.

Of course, Christianity’s central tenets of conscience, free will, individual responsibility do work out to threats to tyrannical societies like the PRC’s because these fundamental positions are threats to the power of the tyrants that reign over those societies.  Hence the need for the CCP to work so zealously to suppress Christianity and along the way to lock Muslims up in concentration camps and jail Falun Gong followers.

Keep in mind, too, that this is the People’s Republic of China that Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden says is no threat to us.

A Misunderstanding

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Senator Cory “Spartacus” Booker (D, NJ) has one in spades. The article at the link was centered on Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Robert Francis O’Rourke’s mild disagreement with Booker’s position on gun control, but one of the false premises that inform Booker’s misunderstanding was exposed.

Booker argued that just as a driver’s license demonstrates a person’s eligibility and proficiency to drive a car, “a gun license demonstrates that a person is eligible and can meet certain safety and training standards necessary to own a gun.”

First, Booker’s analogy is badly flawed.  A drivers license does not at all demonstrate a person’s eligibility to drive a car. Eligibility to drive comes from the person being a US citizen (or, according to many Progressive-Democrats, from their presence in the US and in a State, whether that presence is legal or not) of a State-determined minimum age, and from no other criteria.  The drivers license then demonstrates a minimum level of proficiency and knowledge of State driving laws. Other restrictions on driving then impact whether the person will be allowed to retain that license; they do not change his eligibility criteria to drive, for getting a license.  Indeed, that license must be granted on a will-issue basis on satisfactory completion of training; licensing courses cannot be used to restrict driving.

On the larger issue, a person is eligible to own a gun and to bear it solely from his status as a citizen of the United States.  Here’s what the 2nd Amendment says:

…the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

There’s nothing in there about eligibility criteria. The only addenda to that are State-mandated criteria related to whether the person has a violent felony history.  All a gun license demonstrates is that State-mandated levels of safety and training standards, which include knowledge of State laws, have been met.  And that license must be granted on a will-issue basis on satisfactory completion of training; licensing courses cannot be used to restrict owning and bearing.

Abortion and Busy-ness

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Recall that Georgia has just enacted a law barring abortions once the baby’s heartbeat has been detected.  Busy Philipps, actress and talk show host, objected.

Every woman deserves compassion and care, not judgment and interference when it comes to their own bodies.

Another, more accurate, phrasing might include Every baby deserves compassion and care, not interference or dismissal when it comes to their own bodies.

Philipps went on.

Women and their doctors are in the best position to make informed decisions about what is best for them[.]

How sad. What’s best for the baby doesn’t even enter into it.

More Censorship

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Jack Dorsey has chosen to have his Twitter company censor another conservative account, this time @AOCPress.  Their crime? They mock a Progressive-Democrat (I’ll leave it as an exercise for the student to figure out who).  Dorsey insists the parody account (an obviously parody account—it was labeled “parody”) mislead fellow tweeters.  Because, apparently, Dorsey’s customers are mind-numbingly stupid and can’t recognize parody.

Dorsey seems not to like parody in general, too, at least when it comes from Conservatives.

Twitter has also banned an account parodying former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, and another that mocked Russian president Vladimir Putin.

This is free speech Left-style.