Month: May 2012

The Oops Cost: When Government Makes Mistakes

Sometimes governments make mistakes that incur random penalties on their citizens. I like to call this the “oops cost.” I believe that the opportunities for oops costs have increased in recent years, as well as the magnitude of their costs.

For example, when Obama signed the NDAA a few months ago, he dramatically increased the oops cost of being mistaken for a terrorist.

Oops! You’re not really a terrorist! But now you’re locked up forever with no charge or trial!

From my understanding of the law, this could literally happen to any American citizen, but to the best of my knowledge, it’s no more than a hypothetical fear thus far. However, for many years many Americans have been charged with a lower oops cost of being mistaken for a terrorist: having trouble getting on a plane.

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The Avengers Opening Weekend: Not Frontloaded

The official ticket sales for Sunday won’t come in until this afternoon, but The Avengers movie is projected to be the first movie to make $200 million in the U.S. in its opening weekend. Incredibly, that is already more than each of the entire individual theater runs of Thor, Captain America, and the Incredible Hulk (it will take another week to catch the Ironman films).

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Jury Nullification: Our Secret Weapon

A couple weeks ago there was a small victory for proponents of jury nullification, as a judge dismissed an indictment against a man accused of jury tampering for passing out pamphlets about jury nullification in front of a courthouse. This was only the second time I’d even heard about the subject, and as I learned more about it I thought I should do my part to draw more attention to it. I’m not an expert, but I want to share what I’ve learned.

Jury nullification is an important tool that has been used by everyday American citizens against an unjust government for hundreds of years. It’s a tool we still have today, though efforts have been made to hide its existence, and we may need it now more than ever. The good news is it can’t be taken away; we just have to know how to use it when the opportunity arises.

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What Did The Terrible TSA Do Last Month?

April 2012 was a pretty bad month for Americans under the tyrannical Transportation Security Administration. I believe we need to focus as much attention as possible on these abuses, not because I want to make you feel outraged or depressed, but because I believe everyone needs to be aware that the TSA is one of the greatest present dangers to the everyday freedoms of Americans, and things are only getting worse.

Let’s start with the latest outrageous assault stories which have, sadly, ceased to be surprising:

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