It was predictable that if Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors Chairman Holloway submitted a motion to censure supervisor Lynne De Bruin for revealing the truth about the abuses at the county’s Mental Health Complex, he did so knowing that he had the votes lined up to win.

Those votes he had, and the county board censured De Bruin on a vote of 13-6. See, County Board Votes to Censure Supervisor Lynne De Bruin.

When confronted with evidence of official abuses and a public official’s misconduct, Milwaukee County walked the well-trod path of most communities — blaming honest people rather than addressing wrongful government conduct. The issue won’t go away so easily, although at this stage, the County will likely dig in, and try to hold on until after the fall elections. Behavioral Health Division administrator Chianelli should have been fired at the first certain revelations, weeks ago.

Wisconsin’s possible next administration is looking no better than the one it seeks to succeed.

I’ve posted about Chianelli’s policy, and the tragedy that is conduct at the MHC, before. See, A Milwaukee County Bureaucrat’s Immoral Utilitarianism, Update: A Milwaukee County Bureaucrat’s Immoral Utilitarianism, Update 2, Update 3, Update 4, Update 5, Update 6, Update 7, Update 8, Update 9, Update 10, Update 11, and

In Nick Gillespie Discusses the “Death of Decency” On CNBC’S Powerlunch, Reason’s Gillespie contends that although popular entertainment has grown coarser, there are many positive social trends that are moving in the right direction.

I agree on both counts, and I’d suggest that if pop culture has grown coarser, the answer is change in private conduct. Unfortunately, one often hears that the only way to improve conduct and language in civil society (a fundamentally private domain) is through laws, regulations, and restrictions. That’s not a path to improvement — it’s a guarantee of even worse problems.

People will not be made better through the paternalism of the state, something that really amounts to the condescending, hectoring tyranny of middling scolds exceeding their mandates. The best example is the faith — belief is not advanced truly through a state-supported church (as some nations in Europe still have); the faith that a state embraces becomes corrupt and undesirable. A few people, alone in a household in China, with no support outside, are closer to the truth of life than any hereditary monarch who declares herself the supposed defender of the faith.

There’s also the obvious problem of politicians’ and bureaucrats’ self-interest, a self-interest that all others see, but that officeholders, themselves, refuse to recognize. When a politician tells you that he’d like you to be polite, he really means that he’d not like you to criticize him. What he calls impolite speech, a free society recognizes as lawful criticism.

As for what appears on NBC, Fox, etc., people should and will turn away from the vulgar and repulsive. They’ll do so not because the state banned something, but because people of conscience will reject undesirable programs, on their own. Men and women don’t need guidance from politicians who are no wiser than anyone else.

Here’s an accompanying description of the clip:

Reason.tv’s Nick Gillespie appeared on CNBC’s PowerLunch to discuss the “death of decency” and whether television is moving in the right direction, on June 8, 2010.

Approximately 3.25 minutes.

They only look cute to dupe humanity into a false sense of complacency:

The truth is far more sinister:

A recent story in the New York Times, entitled, Chimps, Too, Wage War and Annex Rival Territory, describes accurately how dangerous chimpanzees can be. It’s about time someone wrote honestly and forthrightly about the chimp menace. For years, I’ve suspected that humanity has been fed a bill of goods by the so-called “scientific community,” most especially the screwball Englishwoman, Jane Goodall.

Chimps, especially young ones, can be deceptively, duplicitously cute. It’s all nonsense. No tire swing, no small tricycle, should beguile innocent humans into a false sense of security. Chimpanzees are deadly, vicious wild animals. The NYT story explains accurately what chimps do to each other: “Enemy males will be held down, then bitten and battered to death. Females are usually let go, but their babies will be eaten.” The story notes that, “[c]himpanzees are immensely powerful, and since they can tear each other apart, they could also make short work of any researcher who incurred their animosity.”

Yes, they could. They’re violent, murderous cannibals. If they’ll treat each other this way, then we can be sure that they’ll be even more violent with humans. Much more violent, I wouldn’t wonder.

(Jane Goodall made a career out of ignoring the truth of chimp violence, and for it she should be roundly criticized. England, however, is a disordered place of nutty aristocrats, so she’s now Dame Jane Goodall. The English reward error, stupidity, and mediocrity at every turn. It’s how, after all, they came upon the idea of a hereditary monarchy.)

I don’t believe that there should be legal restrictions on the kinds of animals people can own, but scientists and naturalists owe the public a realistic description of chimpanzees’ tendency toward inflicting mayhem on defenseless humans. People are foolish to own chimps as pets, and should be liable for the damage they cause to property, neighbors, etc.

These animals should be left in their native habits. Alternatively, they should be kept in private zoos, surrounded by deep moats, high fences, solid walls, and strategically-placed machine gun nests.

It’s the least we owe each other, and all humanity.

David Weigel of the Washington Post‘s “Right Now” blog (covering conservatives more than libertarians) writes about press coverage of Wayne Allyn Root, former vice presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party in 2008. Root has never been popular — that’s a kind understatement — with left-leaning libertarians.

(They see him as a crypto-Republican. He is, however, popular with center-right members of the LP. Even a third party has factions.)

Root contends that he’s on a sensible and popular path, and Weigel quotes Root as contending, in his typically humble fashion, that

“If I’m not on the right track,” said Root when asked about his libertarian critics, “how can you explain Fox News, a conservative TV network, giving TV shows to Glenn Beck, Jon Stossel and Judge Andrew Napolitano – all strong libertarian thinkers? How can you explain the success of Ron Paul, Rand Paul and Sharron Angle? How can you explain [my coming] out of nowhere to become the 2008 Libertarian Party Vice Presidential nominee, and now becoming an overnight media sensation on Fox News, Fox Business, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC – doing 20 to 30 radio interviews a week across the country?”

In the end, Weigel’s observation about libertarians, the LP, and the Tea Party movement is partly correct: “There’s a natural constituency for Libertarians; it’s just that tea party activists are more comfortable in the GOP, and worried that splitting their votes would help Democrats.”

The Tea Party and libertarian movement aren’t the same thing; members of each have some shared interests, but they’ve differences, too. The groups are not so easy to unite as Weigel implies.

I am sure, however, that America will return to sound principles of limited government. She’s doing so now, all around us.

See, A Libertarian Star Who Drives Libertarians Crazy.

Over at the La Crosse Tribune there’s a story about the National Pork Board’s cease and desist letter over a parody that described unicorn meat as the “new white meat.” The Pork Board complained over the parody that the website ThinkGeek issued. (The website previously teased about bacon with an imaginary toy called “My First Bacon.”)

There’s a wasteful foolishness – a reflexiveness – in a group that complains about a parody that mentions unicorn meat as being “an excellent source of sparkles.” They’ve simply made themselves look dull and humorless.

See, “Pork Board Squeals Over Imaginary Unicorn Meat.”

An embattled public official will resort to a few quick — but increasingly ineffective — techniques to distract the public from official incompetence, mistakes, abuses, and injuries inflicted on ordinary citizens. One is to demonize anyone who questions official conduct, including courageous and honest public officials. The second is to produce — right from a hat — a study that proves everything is Well and Wonderful.

In Milwaukee County, where the administrator of the Behavioral Health Division presides over a world of abuses, errors, mistakes, and immoral utilitarian policies, they’re trying both defensive tactics to shield government employees and officials. Defenders of the status quo are busy trying to censure the honest politician who revealed Milwaukee County’s abusive and incompetent mental health practices, and now they’ve offered their own study that purports show Milwaukee is performing above national standards.

It’s not an independent study, it’s their own study, that shows these supposed strengths. After federal and state watchdogs listed failure after failure at Milwaukee County’s Mental Health Complex, the people who are accused of incompetency contend that they’re performing above the national average.

See, Mental Health Complex report defends mixed-gender wards: Staff-run study finds sexual contact is below national rate.

But here’s the truth about conduct at the county’s complex, conduct that’s a threat to patients, but also to political ambitions:

Patient advocates and sexual assault treatment professionals said the incidence of sex between patients reported by the county administrators seemed surprisingly low.

The Journal Sentinel reported this month that it had obtained a letter from Milwaukee County Supervisor Lynne De Bruin saying the county’s top mental health administrator, John Chianelli, intentionally housed female patients with men known to be dangerous “because the presence of women reduces the likelihood of the men being violent.”

A federal inspection report on the complex found 11 of 17 patients whose records were reviewed had inappropriate sexual contact during the last half of 2009. One 22-year-old patient from that group became pregnant and another patient was charged with two counts of felony sexual assault.

Disability Rights Wisconsin, which is conducting its own investigation, found that five patients from that same group had been sexually assaulted. A report from the rights group in May found a disturbing lack of concern by hospital administrators over the amount of inappropriate sex among patients.

I wrote that the techniques of blame-casting on honest politicians, and of suddenly producing self-created and exonerating studies, now prove ineffective. I well understand the purpose of these techniques: to create uncertainty, and to make an issue of clear abuse and incompetency seem like a complex, complicated debate between two sides on equal footing.

These techniques would have been more effective when there was no easy way to rebut them. When only a few newspapers and television stations controlled the news, before talk radio, the web, blogs, online newspaper comments, etc., politicians and bureaucrats would have had a much better chance of containing criticism, using these two techniques.

Not now, and it’s evidence of how out-of-step with these new media politicians are that they rely on yesterday’s deceptions to combat today’s truth.

Concerning my small town of Whitewater, I’ve pointed out that wherever and whenever people are able to express themselves freely, they express concerns that politicians ignore. In an unrestricted format, the cheery lies and happy deceptions of career bureaucrats and long-serving incumbents meet — as they would not so often in an earlier era — the truth of residents’ views.

I’ve posted about Chianelli’s policy, and the tragedy that is conduct at the MHC, before. See, A Milwaukee County Bureaucrat’s Immoral Utilitarianism, Update: A Milwaukee County Bureaucrat’s Immoral Utilitarianism, Update 2, Update 3, Update 4, Update 5, Update 6, Update 7, Update 8, Update 9, Update 10, and Update 11