Yesterday at the department, somebody said the following phrase, “I don’t need to touch your socks. I believe you.”

The linguists among us immediately suggested that this could well be the first and only time such a statement has been made by humans anywhere.

So let’s play a game. Can you come up with scenarios where such a statement can be made?

I will, of course, eventually reveal who said the sentence and why.

 

Women obtaining an abortion-inducing drug would be required to undergo an ultrasound before and after taking the drug under a bill approved Wednesday by an Indiana Senate committee. . . The bill would require physicians to “schedule a follow-up appointment” two weeks after RU-486 is administered. But that’s not all. Under penalty of criminal and/or civil charges and fines, physicians must “make a reasonable effort to ensure that the pregnant woman returns for the follow-up appointment.” And what constitutes a “reasonable effort”? The bill doesn’t make that entirely clear, though it specifically mentions “recording in the pregnant woman’s medical records the date, and time of the follow-up appointment, a brief description of the efforts by the physician and the physician’s staff to ensure the woman’s return, and the name of the individual who performed the efforts.”

Libertarians, hello? Freedom-lovers of all stripes? Are you there? Are you protesting this blatant violation of the rights of medical patients and their doctors?

This is a governmental intrusion that is a little bit more severe than not being allowed to carry a bazooka in public*, so where are the protests, the freedom marches, the Libertarian outrage? Doctors are being forced by the government to conduct unnecessary medical procedures under the threat of criminal and civil charges. This is nanny state at its worst, so where are our worshipers of liberty?

No, as usual when there is an actual threat of an actual governmental intrusion, not a peep comes from the direction of US Libertarians.

* If you don’t agree, get a neighbor to stick an object of the size of the transvaginal ultrasound in you against the will of both of you. And then repeat the procedure. And now imagine that you can both be fined and / or arrested for choosing not to repeat this exercise.