In his latest USA Today column, Glenn Reynolds looks at the FCC backing off plans to “monitor,” Soviet “Zampolit” style, American newsrooms, the Department of Homeland Security cancelling plans to build a nationwide license plate database, and on the state level, well-deserved pushback in the form of civil disobedience from Connecticut’s gun registration scheme and writes:
This is more “Irish Democracy,” passive resistance to government overreach. The Hartford (Conn.) Courant is demanding that the state use background-check records to prosecute those who haven’t registered, but the state doesn’t have the resources and it’s doubtful juries would convict ordinary, law-abiding people for failure to file some paperwork.
Though people have taken to the streets from Egypt, to Ukraine, to Venezuela to Thailand, many have wondered whether Americans would ever resist the increasing encroachments on their freedom. I think they’ve begun.
Faster, Please, as my PJM colleague Michael Ledeen would say.
And speaking of gun control, even Variety, rarely a font of conservatism, asks if his obsession on the topic has dropped Morton Downey Jr.-wannabe Piers Morgan’s ratings into the cellar. “#3 with a bullet,” Jim Treacher quips in response, noting that “Over ten times more people follow Morgan on Twitter than watch his show, which is on CNN, a former cable news network.”
As James Lileks likes to say, joyless monomania kills a blog, and it doesn’t do much for a talk show either. At least the avuncular Larry King never sneered at his guests.
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