Categories
general freedom nannyism national politics & policies

The Unstoppable Kill Switch

Congress, regulations, control, authoritarianism

Fifty-​seven Republicans in Congress worked with the bulk of Democrats, and the President of These United States, to continue funding development of a “kill switch” on new cars. On Tuesday, the bill became law.

You may have thought that most new cars driving down the road could already be switched “off” remotely. After all, the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, signed by former President Joe Biden, required the National Traffic Safety Administration to develop just such a technology for passenger cars. “The sweeping infrastructure law passed Congress with bipartisan support,” MSNBC pointed out last week.

But government isn’t fast, and the kill switch project “needed” more funding, which was included in the new $1.2 trillion spending package.

Still, a minority did try — unsuccessfully, alas — to put a halt to this “advanced impaired driving prevention technology.”

Calling the R&D “Orwellian,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R‑Ky.) asked a relevant question: “When your car shuts down because it doesn’t approve of your driving, how will you appeal your roadside conviction?”

Competitive Enterprise Institute fellow Clyde Wayne Crews further explained: “The vehicle ‘kill-​switch’ is precisely the kind of overreach that will empower regulatory agencies to manage behavior without votes by elected representatives in Congress or real accountability.”

Though Republican Massie had proposed an amendment to defund the kill switch, and a few Democrats joined him — Reps. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, Lou Correa of California and Val Hoyle of Oregon — a Heinz 57 sauce of GOP representatives sided with the overwhelming bulk of Democrats to keeping the kill switch funding flowing.

Separate efforts to repeal Section 24220 outright, such as H.R. 1137 (the No Kill Switches in Cars Act), remain pending but likely paralyzed in committee.

The Leviathan rumbles along, no kill switch in development.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with Nano Banana

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
Thought

Milton Friedman

With some notable exceptions, businessmen favor free enterprise in general but are opposed to it when it comes to themselves.

Milton Friedman, “The Suicidal Impulse of the Business Community” (1983)

Categories
Today

Broken Arrow

On February 5, 1958, a hydrogen bomb known as the Tybee Bomb was lost by the U.S. Air Force off the coast of Savannah, Georgia. It has yet to be recovered.

Categories
election law national politics & policies U.S. Constitution

Federal Election Takeover?

Washington Post, hypocrisy, voting rights, democracy, states rights

“We should take over the voting, the voting in at least 15 places,” President Donald Trump declared on former FBI deputy director Dan Bongino’s new podcast. “The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”

That’s just what Democrats in the U.S. House attempted to do back in 2021 with their H.R. 1. I know well because I worked with a large coalition of groups and individuals to oppose that dishonestly labeled “For the People Act.” 

For the people who are Democratic Party hacks maybe.

A 2021 Heritage Foundation analysis argued the legislation would “Seize the authority of states to regulate voter registration and the voting process.”

“The Democratic bill is indeed sweeping,” PolitiFact informed at the time. “At 791 pages, the bill does everything from prohibiting states’ voter ID laws to breaking the gridlock of the Federal Election Commission by removing a member.”

Luckily, H.R. 1 did not pass the Senate. 

Have you ever noticed that in the tug of war between federal and state power, politicians of all stripes support the Constitution’s balance when it suits them and ignore it when it doesn’t?

Same goes for news media. The Washington Post falsely reported on Monday that by urging “Republican lawmakers” to act, the president was “claiming a power explicitly granted to states in the U.S. Constitution.” 

Well, Article 1, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution does say “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections … shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof,” but it explicitly adds that “the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations …”

Democracy dies in half-truths. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created by Nano Banana

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
Thought

Philip K. Dick

To fight the Empire is to be infected by its derangement. This is a paradox: whoever defeats a segment of the Empire becomes the Empire; it proliferates like a virus … thereby spreading the infection.

Philip K. Dick, VALIS (1981).
Categories
Today

First

On February 4, 1789, George Washington was unanimously elected as the first President of the United States, under the new Constitution, by the U.S. Electoral College.

On the same date five years later, the French legislature abolished slavery throughout all territories of the French Republic.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

Initiative Killers

parchment limits, term limits, citizen's initiative, law, politicians

“Almost nothing is more sacred for the voters,” says Sam Reed, former Secretary of State in Washington State, “than their right to petition to change laws or to refer laws to the voters.”

He reminded members of the Senate State Government and Elections Committee that “the initiative process is utilized by progressives, conservatives, and nonpartisan individuals.… For over 100 years, the initiative process has served our citizens well and any changes made to it must be justified.”

Reed argues that the changes in Senate Bill 5973 (as well as in House Bills HB 2599 and 2260) are in no way justified.

“The stated reason for this bill is to stop fraudulent or forged signatures from being counted. But that’s already being done. Besides substantial penalties deterring such actions, the Secretary of State is extremely diligent and reviews every petition sheet and every signature and any that are even remotely questionable are set aside and never counted.” This means that “all of SB 5973’s requirements will substantially burden the Secretary of State’s already overworked staff and the citizen signature gathering process without any added benefit.”

The bills add more requirements that end up being more burdensome on an already high-​hurdled petitioning process.

“All aspects of the proposed bill (SB 5973 /​ HB 2599) impose severe restrictions, limitations, and onerous requirements on circulators and ballot measure campaigns,” adds attorney Nicholas Power, pointing out that the bill’s intent section “admits there hasn’t been any fraud for 12+ years.”

What’s really going on with these bills?

Politicians generally don’t like citizens creating laws any more than they like citizens limiting their terms in office. It really cramps their style.

So, they want to kill the initiative. Instead, let’s keep cramping their murderous style.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with Nano Banana

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
Thought

Robert Sheckley

Man is the only animal whose fear of embarrassment can overcome his instinct for self-preservation.

Robert Sheckley, Game of X (1965), Chapter Six.
Categories
Today

Spain & Bagehot

On February 3, 1783, Spain recognized the independence from Britain of the United States of America. 

Walter Bagehot (pronounced “badge-​it”), famed editor of The Economist and author of Lombard Street, was born on this date in 1826.

Categories
Accountability folly ideological culture responsibility

Everyone Dies?

AI, Artificial Intelligence, prediction, action

After Friday, when I worried about robots taking over, I was glad to read a debunking of the AI Will Destroy Us All meme, so in vogue. In “Superintelligent AI Is Not Coming To Kill You,” from the March issue of Reason, Neil Chilson argues that we shouldn’t freak out.

Not only do I not want to freak out, I don’t want to use AI very much — though I understand that, these days, sometimes it makes sense to consult the Oracles.

Chilson is reviewing a new book, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All, by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares, who argue that “artificial intelligence research will inevitably produce superintelligent machines and these machines will inevitably kill everyone.”

Just like I feared on Friday!

Where the authors go wrong, Chilson argues, is that by “defining intelligence as the ability to predict and steer the world, Yudkowsky and Soares collapse two distinct capacities — understanding and acting — into one concept. This builds their conclusion into their premise. If intelligence inherently includes steering, then any sufficiently intelligent system is, by definition, a world-​shaping agent. The alignment problem becomes not a hypothesis about how certain AI architectures might behave but a tautology about how all intelligent systems must behave.”

Today’s AI’s are “fundamentally about prediction. They predict the next element in a sequence.”

They aren’t necessarily taking action.

I hope Chilson’s critique holds true.

But we’ve caught AI lying, “just making stuff up” — though considering the nature of “Large Language Models” (the method by which modern AI works), “lying” may be the wrong word. Still, it just seems to me that at some point somebody’s — everybody’s! — gonna link the predictor to some sort of truly active mechanism. 

Like street-​ready robots.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with Nano Banana

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts