Month: July 2010

From the Center for Competitive Politics, who’s mission it is to fight campaign finance laws that infringe on the First Amendment:

I just wanted to let you know, if you haven’t heard already, that the Senate Republicans held together yesterday to block the DISCLOSE Act from being considered. This is a major win for the First Amendment, and a big setback for the speech regulators.

Unfortunately, that is all it is – a setback. Senator Schumer, who’s been leading the charge for the DISCLOSE Act in the Senate, has vowed to bring it back up as often as it takes to pass it. Needless to say, the Center for Competitive Politics will continue to do everything we can to prevent this speech-killing legislation from being passed. We are already talking with people on Capitol Hill to make sure that all 41 Republicans remain “no” votes on this bill, and also are reaching out to a handful of Democrats that might potentially switch to “no.”

As soon as I’m home from Hawaii, when money will not be as tight, I’m going to kick these guys another donation. I’m glad there’s an organization out there dedicated to battling the quashing of political speech under the guise of campaign finance reform.

The other day, I stumbled across a post at Boots & Sabers that made me laugh about the nature of unintended consequences. It would seem that San Diego voters decided to ban drinking on beaches in 2008. Not surprisingly, the voters who disagreed with the van and visitors simply took to floating their various beach gear out off shore a bit and enjoying a cold one in the water. That was not good enough for local bureaucrats who have now decided to take the ban even further – 3 miles off the shore to be precise. Owen adds:

I see a market for party barges that head a few miles off shore. Of course, they could just allow drinking on the beaches where people who pass out will wake up with a bad sunburn instead of drowning.

Who needs common sense, right?

I was reminded of it last night while reading through the guidebook I bought for our trip, Hawaii: The Big Island Revealed. The specific paragraph:

Sometimes even good intentions can lead to disaster. At one adventure, a trailhead led hikers to the base of a wonderful waterfall. There was only one trail, to the left of the parking lot, that a person could take. Neither we, other guides nor websites ever said, “stay on the trail to the left” because at the time there was only one trail to take. The state (in their zeal to protect themselves from liability at an unmaintained trail) came along and put up a DANGER KEEP OUT sign at the trailhead. Travelers encountering the sign assumed they were on the wrong trail and started to beat a path to the right instead. But that direction started sloping downward and ended abruptly at a 150-foot-high cliff. Hikers retreated and in a short time a previously non-existent trail to the right became as prominent as the correct (and heretofore only) path to the left. Not long after the state’s well-intentioned sign went up, an unwitting pair of hikers took the new, incorrect trail to the right and fell to their deaths. They probably died because they had been dissuaded from taking the correct trail by a state sign theoretically erected to keep people safe.