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Liberty and Power

  • Dec 27, 2003

    MORE ON GRADE INFLATION

    by Liberty and Power

    Thanks, David, for the kind mention of our article at SCSUScholars on grade inflation. We've been concerned about this for quite some time. The issue for us is much worse, as I wrote earlier today:

    When I first came to SCSU, students could retake classes to improve their grades and only the highest grade appeared on the
  • Dec 27, 2003

    LET THEM EAT TURKEY

    by Liberty and Power

    Bill Clinton should be green with envy. George W. Bush, Clinton’s successor and bird of a feather in his quest to stay out of the jungles of Vietnam, in one fell swoop has addressed doubts about both his personal courage and his solidarity with soldiers risking their lives in Iraq. Bush’s turkey day trot to Iraq for dinner was a masterful stroke in public relations—at least in the short-term. In the long-term, it could put the

  • Dec 27, 2003

    BLAME IT ON THE BLAINE

    by Liberty and Power

    The Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments today in Locke v. Davey, a case that challenges the constitutionality of Washington State's Blaine Amendment.

    A Wall Street Jounral editorial notes that"a remarkably ecumenical coalition of libertarians, conservatives, blacks, Catholics, Evangelicals and Orthodox Jews -- everyone from the Institute for Justice and the

  • Dec 27, 2003

    TRADE POLICY NONSENSE

    by Liberty and Power

    I sure hope the current controversy over Bush’s steel tariffs puts to rest the fallacy that protectionism is in the “national interest.” Here’s a clear case where wine for one interest group (steel producers/workers) is poison for another (auto producers/workers, among others). “Buy American” is not only wrong-headed; it’s also incoherent.

    P.S.: I'm taking great pleasure at Bush's predicament.

  • Dec 27, 2003

    APOLOGIES

    by Liberty and Power

    I must apologize because the tales that I posted three Blogs below are apparently false. There are real Stella Awards and the above link provides a way to sign up for free case updates. I want to thank Arthur Silber for helping me learn a valuable lesson about being too quick to pass on things that have not been checked out.

    In the back of my mind I knew those stories were too good to

  • Dec 27, 2003

    FLAMES & OXYGEN

    by Liberty and Power

    My debate on Atlantis II continues. I'd like to reproduce here some points of interest.

    Does anyone honestly believe that World War II would have happened anyway without World War I and the events that transpired in its aftermath? Ayn Rand often said that World War I—the war"to make the world safe for democracy"—led to the

  • Dec 27, 2003

    FAIR WEATHER FEDERALISM?

    by Liberty and Power

    Richard Garnett of Notre Dame Law School has a good article over at National Review Online responding to some recent high-profile charges that conservatives are"fair-weather federalists" when it comes to supporting federal action on abortion and marriage. His article echoes many of the points I made

  • Dec 27, 2003

    2002 STELLA AWARDS

    by Liberty and Power

    A friend of mine, Bob Skyler, sent this to me in an e-mail and it speaks for itself.

    It's time once again to review the winners of the annual"Stella Awards". The Stella's are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonalds. That case inspired the Stella awards for the most frivolous successful lawsuits in the United States. Unfortunately the most recent lawsuit implicating McDo

  • Dec 27, 2003

    CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM DOUBLE STANDARDS

    by Liberty and Power

    In Monday’s Washington Times there are two excellent columns concerning the recent Supreme Court decision upholding the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law. In the first one Nat Hentoff, quite possibly America’s staunchest defender of the First Amendment, highlights some of the arguments made by the dissenting judges. Their points are so valid that they leave one with a sense of wonderment as to how t
  • Dec 27, 2003

    HARD-LINE U.S. FOREIGN POLICY: SYMBOLIC GAIN, REAL PAIN

    by Liberty and Power

    Lately, the Bush administration and its neo-conservative supporters have been crowing about how President Bush's hard-line foreign policy caused Muammar Qaddafi to end his unconventional (biological, chemical and nuclear) weapons programs and open them to international inspections. They have also been implying that the tough U.S. policy will continue to make bad regimes capitulate. But the gains from Qaddafi's abandonment of such programs are mostly symbolic. In contrast, the p
  • Dec 27, 2003

    SUNSTEIN ON CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

    by Liberty and Power

    Cass Sunstein is calling the Supreme Court's approval of the new campaign finance reform law,"a surprising endorsement of congressional authority."

    I couldn't agree more. Considering the text of the First Amendment ("Congress shall make no law..."), I'd say that the Court's approval of a federal law sharply regulating political speech prior to an election is surprising, at the very least.

    The only di

  • Dec 27, 2003

    VAE VICTIS

    by Liberty and Power

    [Cross-posted at In a Blog's Stead]

    Who should try Saddam Hussein?

    The Nuremberg trials have had both a positive and a negative legacy. The positive legacy is the affirmation of a higher moral standard to which government rulers are subject and in the name of which they can be called to accouint. But the negative legacy is the notion that the vanquished may legitimately be tried by the victor.

    As Joh
  • Dec 27, 2003

    KEEPING THE TRUE SPIRIT OF KWANZAA!

    by Liberty and Power

    Ann Coulter is not one of my favorite people but she does often show a talent for good one-liners such as this one, “Is it just me, or is Kwanzaa becoming way too commercialized?”
  • Dec 27, 2003

    SOWING AND REAPING

    by Liberty and Power

    Speaking of sowing and reaping, here's a report from the Washington Post that is worth reading. WP reporter Dana Priest writes:

    Donald H. Rumsfeld went to Baghdad in March 1984 with instructions to deliver a private message about weapons of mass destruction: that the United States' public criticism of Iraq for using chemical weapons would not