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Liberty and Power

  • Jan 10, 2004

    RIGHTS OF EX-FELONS

    by Liberty and Power

    Just a quick response to David's post from earlier: isn't the denial of rights to ex-felons a good example of a punishment approach to law-breaking as opposed to a restitution approach? If one sees the legal system as inflicting punishment, then refusing to allow ex-felons to vote or own guns might make sense. However, if one thinks in terms of restitution, then someone who has paid their debt, either literally or in time served, has made full resti
  • Jan 10, 2004

    GAYS, LESBIANS, AND LIBERTARIANISM

    by Liberty and Power

    A conversation on a Usenet group brought up an observation I've noted about the classical liberal/libertarian movement that has persisted over the course of the now more than 20 years I've been involved. There are, and have been, a goodly number of prominent gay men in both the academic and policy sides of the movement for many, many years, and the Libertarian Party has had a gay rights plank and gay men involved for many years as well. And in the more recent past, there's been a flourishing

  • Jan 10, 2004

    I AM IN GOOD COMPANY

    by Liberty and Power

    Back on December 2nd I had to apologize for previously posting the bogus Stella Awards, including the urban legend of Merv Grazinski, in this space and I still consider myself to have let the Blog down. But, after reading Thursday’s Washington Times I do not feel quite so bad anymore. It seems one of my hero’s Walter Williams made the same mistake and he too had to admit a lack of due diligence. In his column he points out that
  • Jan 9, 2004

    BREEDING A CULTURE OF FEAR AND DEPENDENCE

    by Liberty and Power

    I just posted an essay about the Bush administration's cultivation of fear and dependence, by means of both their language and their actions. Here is the conclusion:

    But this ongoing" crisis" atmosphere provides many benefits to the administration. As the Spiked article points out, it gets the administration off the hook of blame: we can't say they didn't warn us, even if they didn't do so in any meaningful way. It makes people more likely to believe that those in the administrati

  • Jan 9, 2004

    NIGHTMARE IN MONTGOMERY

    by Liberty and Power

    Last September, nearly 70 percent of Alabama’s voters rejected a proposed 1.2 billion dollar tax increase. Did this end the matter? Of course not. Supporters of higher taxes have been even more persistent than Freddy and Jason. A group of them has asked a federal judge to require the legislature to throw out the property tax system and replace it with a system which, of course, will raise taxes.

    According to the

  • Jan 9, 2004

    Protecting the Administrative Rear-End

    by Liberty and Power

    University administrators do not react to criticism with argument and reason -- generally because they have none -- but with further deployment of administrative rules. You've heard of the"fog of war." This is the fog of officialdom, the pernicious off-spring of early 20th century progressivism and, ironically, the means once intended to protect us from the arbitrary exercise of power.

    Case in point: David Beito and I have criticized the University of Alabama for failing to address, and

  • Jan 9, 2004

    DICTATRESS OF THE WORLD

    by Liberty and Power

    Sean T. Collins continues to be puzzled by libertarian anti-interventionism, writing in his blog:
    ... I think the American military should be used to depose tyrants and promote constitutional democracy. There's obviously got to be a priority structure, since we don't have the means or the manpower to fight the entire Axis of Evil plus the AoE Junior Auxilliary simultaneously, but generally speaking Gulf War I
  • Jan 8, 2004

    NO SMOKING GUN

    by Liberty and Power

    Peter Jennings reported on ABC"World News Tonight" that Secretary of State Colin Powell acknowledged today that he has seen"no smoking gun or concrete evidence linking Saddam Hussein to Al Qaeda. Last February, Mr. Powell told the United Nations that Iraq was harboring terrorists with ties to Osama Bin Laden and warned of a sinister nexus between Iraq and the terrorist network."

    So, let's see: A 400-member mili

  • Jan 8, 2004

    With Friends Like These, U.S. Enemies Don't Seem as Bad

    by Liberty and Power

    The media made much of President Bush’s “axis of evil” -- much as administration “spinners” had hoped. The excessive demonization of the admittedly autocratic Iran, North Korea, and Iraq allowed the administration to build public support for an aggressive invasion of Iraq as well as hard-line policies toward these “rogue” states. But a more appropriate moniker might be “axis of exaggeration.” The Bush administration has failed to find unconventional (nuclear, biological and chemical) weapons

  • Jan 8, 2004

    THIS IS DISGUSTING

    by Liberty and Power

    The Stupid Party and the Evil Party (which one's which again?) want the fuzz to pull you over if you're not buckled up. Hillary! Clinton and John Warner are cosponsoring a bill that will push the states to adopt"primary enforcement" seat belt laws. As Eric Peters explains on the American Spectator site today:"Primary enforcement means the police can screech out of alleyways, turn on their sirens and pull you over, hands on thei
  • Jan 8, 2004

    CLARK, JUDGES, AND PRECEDENT

    by Liberty and Power

    I saw this piece from the Manchester Union-Leader on Wes Clark and couldn't help but notice this comment:

    The retired four-star general said he will discern a prospective judge's position on abortion not with a litmus test, but by reading his previous decisions to ensure that the judge has never upset existing judicial precedent.

    "I don't believe people whose ideological agenda is to burn

  • Jan 8, 2004

    SCALIA ON DRUG TESTING AND THE DANGERS OF "SYMBOLIC" ACTS

    by Liberty and Power

    I try to keep an eye out for good quotations in my day-to-day law practice. Today, I just happened to come across an excellent passage in a case written by Justice Scalia, and I thought I'd share it with the L&P readership.

    This excerpt may come in handy in some common debates between liberals, libertarians and conservatives for the following reasons. 1) It serves as a nice defense against critics of Justice Scalia who think that the good Justice reflexively panders to the every need a

  • Jan 7, 2004

    GEORGE H.W. BUSH AND IRAQI QUAGMIRES

    by Liberty and Power

    I received this little tidbit this morning from the list serve of Historians Against the War:

    In his 1998 book, A World Transformed, George H.W. Bush describes his reason for not going after Saddam at the end of the first Gulf war:"Extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq . . . would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. . . . We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad . . . [and] rule Iraq. . . . Under those circumstances there would have been no viable ex