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Liberty and Power

  • Dec 27, 2003

    SIC SEMPRIS TYRANNIS

    by Liberty and Power

    Sic Sempris Tyrannis -- Thus perish all tyrants! My first response at the news of Saddam's capture was to check out coverage in the English-version Aljazeera, which ran basically the same straight-forward account that is circulating through dozens (probably hundreds) of other newspapers. Far more interesting is an article entitled
  • Dec 27, 2003

    SADDAM HUSSEIN IN A MUD-HOLE

    by Liberty and Power

    And so, the US armed forces find this brutal mass murderer cowering in a mud-hole. I understand Sheldon's mixed feelings, especially given the US government's former support of Saddam Hussein. It is therefore my hope that the Iraqis give him the due process he denied others and that his crimes against humanity be fully exposed. There isn't an industrial plastic shredder big enough to make him pay for the enormity of those crimes. <

  • Dec 27, 2003

    MIXED FEELINGS

    by Liberty and Power

    So U.S. forces have finally captured Saddam Hussein. Talk about mixed feelings! The murderous bastard deserves to die a long slow death at the hands of the Iraqis he so brutally oppressed. But the thought of U.S. troops hunting down another country’s dictator makes me sick.

  • Dec 27, 2003

    NOT AN EASY JOB

    by Liberty and Power

    You’ve got to sympathize with the campaign-finance reformers. They don’t have it easy. You try removing the appearance of corruption from an intrinsically corrupt enterprise.

    P.S.: With respect to Keith Halderman's post: any congressman who admits that he voted for the bill believing it to be unconstitutional while assuming the Supreme Court would kill it has committed an impeachable offense. There may be a separation of powers (in theory), but members of Congress take

  • Dec 27, 2003

    BOB BARR SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO LOVE HIM

    by Liberty and Power

    Whenever ex-Congressman Bob Barr’s name is mentioned at a drug reform movement event people will invariably start to hiss. He earned his well-deserved infamy in these circles with one of the most blatant attacks on the democratic process in my lifetime. He attached an amendment to the federal bill funding the District of Columbia prohibiting that local government from spending the miniscule amount of money necessary to count the votes already cast in a medical marijuana referendum. Estimat
  • Dec 27, 2003

    AYN RAND AND MARTIN LUTHER

    by Liberty and Power

    I've enjoyed the dialogue between David Beito (here and here) and Lutheran pastor Allen Brill on Martin Luther: Randian Hero? Of course, Rand and Luther had greatly divergent beliefs. But I've got an odd tidbit to share with my colleagues.

    In an earlier manuscript version of the classic novel, The Fountainh

  • Dec 27, 2003

    WAITING FOR DIVINE INTERVENTION IN IRAQ?

    by Liberty and Power

    Gene Healy's post on neoconservatism and the doctrine of unintended consequences was deliciously ironic. But what do we do when administration officials seem to embrace intended ignorance as a raison d'etre?

    In a new Reader's Digest interview, National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice reportedly states the following... ostensibly about her personal life, but, in my view, the perfect embodiment of the administration's Iraq p

  • Dec 27, 2003

    WINNING HEARTS AND MINDS

    by Liberty and Power

    Today’s Washington Times tells of a Human Rights Watch report, titled"Off Target: The Conduct of the War and Civilian Casualties in Iraq," which looked at the use of cluster bombs by American forces. The paper reports that “In 50 acknowledged decapitation strikes, not one targeted Iraqi leader was killed. But in four strikes detailed by in the report, at least 100 Iraqi civilians were killed.” So much f
  • Dec 27, 2003

    "THINGS NEVER WORK OUT QUITE AS YOU HOPE"

    by Liberty and Power

    I'm informed by James Markels that in the foreward to The Essential Neo-Conservative Reader, James Q. Wilson defines the neoconservative persuasion as follows:

    "Neoconservatism is an ... attitude that holds social reality to be complex and change difficult. If there is any article of faith common to almost every adherent, it is the Law of Unintended Consequences. Things never work out quite as you hope; in particular, go

  • Dec 27, 2003

    CORRECTION

    by Liberty and Power

    The reporting about the just-upheld campaign-finance law has been confusing, probably because the law itself is so confusing. At any rate, yesterday I stated, apparently erroneously, that issue ads which implicitly target candidates were banned in the 60 days before an election and 30 days before a primary. It seems that the law only heavily restricts such advertising by imposing rules on how the money for it can be raised and s

  • Dec 27, 2003

    JUS IN BELLO

    by Liberty and Power

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

    I have a problem with both sides in the debate over Lt. Col. Allen West.

    West's defenders say his actions were justified because they resulted in information that helped to avert an attack on his unit. Let's think what that means. If such a defense is correct, then why should it apply solely in this particular case? Wouldn't it follow that torturing prisoners of war is j

  • Dec 27, 2003

    PROCESS AND PROCEEDURES: HOW BUREAUCRACY DEFEATS DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY

    by Liberty and Power

    The decline of liberal democracy in this county was accompanied by the rise of bureaucracy at the beginning of the 20th century. Initially, this was seen by the early"progressives" as a way to insure fairness in the application of rules. Experts, not politicians, would make the decisions, removing decision-making from the play of politics.

    It didn't work. Instead, politicians used the newly created regulatory bureaucracy to escape scrutiny or criticism. After all, they said, it's a mat

  • Dec 27, 2003

    CONGRESSIONAL COWARDICE

    by Liberty and Power

    David Broder had an interesting column in Sunday's Washington Post (did I really just type that?). In it, he explores who should get the blame for the post-9/11 growth of the Imperial Presidency. Through much of the 20th century, from Truman's"police action" in Korea, through Bill Clinton's"bimbo bombings," executive aggrandizement was the main cause. Presidential power in foreign policy grew as a result o
  • Dec 27, 2003

    THE MIDDLE EASTERN THIRD WAY AND THE NEO-CONS

    by Liberty and Power

    Iran’s Shirin Ebadi, the winner of the Nobel prize, shows again that there are many in the Middle East who do not fit into the simplistic"if you’re not with us, you’re against us” view of the world propagated by the neo-conservative Wilsonians in the Bush administration. She continues to stand up, often at considerable risk, for democracy in Iran but, at the same time, just as consistently co
  • Dec 27, 2003

    MONEY AND POLITICS

    by Liberty and Power

    The Supreme Court has upheld the fascistic campaign-finance law, which limits how much money people can give to political parties (who’d want to do that?) and, even more egregiously, bans political “issue ads” by private groups in the last 60 days of campaigns. The 5-4 majority said the appearance of government corruption justifies these restrictions. In other words, the distributive state require