Re: some U.S. observations and notes

From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Wed Dec 26 2001 - 03:38:51 MST


Mike Lorrey wrote:
>

>
> The ACLU is far more than neutral. They have filed numerous amicus curae
> briefs with the courts against the individual rights interpretation, and
> they are also involved in the Trauma Project, an alliance of the AMA,
> APA, the ABA, and the ACLU along with Handgun Control Inc (now styling
> itself as "The Brady Project") and Andrew McKelvey's (of monster.com
> fame) Americans for Gun Safety in a Orwellian project to assemble a
> private nationwide database of gun ownership by violating the medical
> privacy rights of private citizens. If your doctor is aware of, or has
> asked you, your spouse, or your children if there are firearms in your
> household, in the past three years, then you are now on this database.

Why would they need to ask? In California they took address and
checked it against driver's license and gave it to the FBI at
gun purchase time. It would be pointless for the docs to also
go snooping.

>
> Despite this sort of invasiveness being a 'boundary issue' ethical
> violation of doctor-patient confidentiality, millions of family doctors
> and emergency room staffers are engaging in this illegal campaign to
> identify all gun owners in the US. Furthermore, they are advising family
> members of gun owners of the alleged 'risks' of gun ownership (despite
> the total lack of training by such practitioners in risk assessment or
> risk management, a lack of certification in the same, and a lack of
> liability insurance for the same). If, for instance, your wife is told
> by her OB-GYN that your self defense pistol should be kept unloaded and
> locked up in a safe at all times, they are placing themselves in a
> position of liability if your lack of ability to access your firearm for
> self defense results in injury, death, or other financial losses.
>

I know all of this but I still don't think it is a good excuse
for comparing the ACLU to terrorists or claiming they are
murderers. Why not leave that sort of purple prose to those on
the other side of your position?
 
> The ACLU will, though, happily defend your doctor against your civil
> suit in the event you take him/her to court, claiming that the doctor
> has a first amendment right to disseminate the lies and propaganda of
> the anti-gun movement, that whether the doctor is wrong or not is
> immaterial to the doctors intent to help protect the patient from harm
> (an argument that carries no water in malpractice case law, but would
> play in front of a jury).

Well, as a matter of fact, he does have that right to say
whatever he wants for whatever reason he wants. Just like I
have the right to tell him to mind his own business which is
what I am paying him for and what he is presumably trained for.
Really, I have never had a doctor ask me any such questions.

>
> The ACLU is as much a terrorist organization as the al Barakhat money
> wiring organization in Somalia is. They may not get their own hands
> bloody, but they enable the deaths of thousands.

That organization is also not terrorist. Whatever happened to
anarcho-capitalism and especially the cyber version of same?
Did everyone decide these great ideas aren't so great if maybe
some bad people also use them? BAH! Some committment to
freedom. Damn hypocritical if you ask me. And no, wiring
money around does not necessarily make you culpable for anything
unless you explicitly know what the money is for and endorse
it. If you say otherwise then you are only a step from saying
that ISPs are utterly responsible for every byte of information
and intent that goes through their servers.

- samantha



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