We're on spring break this week, but the recent controversy about alleged racism & sexism in this year's production of the HLS Parody is beginning to receive some national attention, with this well-deserved, critical article from FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

One important thing to note right off the bat is that the supposed "town hall meeting" described in the Record article was not, in fact, a widely publicized meeting. The student groups that planned the meeting had originally meant for it to be a closed meeting, and only decided to open it up to anyone the night before the event. They publicized their meeting by sending out emails to student group leaders suggesting that the message be forwarded on to each group's listserv. But many student groups & journals have policies about not using their listserv for off-topic messages, and declined to forward the messages or simply didn't have time to make a decision or even read the email. The administration claims it did not send out an email to all students because that's not something they do for student group-sponsored events. Nonetheless, this meeting is now being portrayed as a "town hall meeting" where presumably any member of the law school community could voice their opinion. But because of the poor organization & publicity, many did not even hear about the event until after it had already happened.

Although I was unable to attend this meeting (because I too didn't hear about it until after the fact), I talked to some people who did go and heard that some of the concerns expressed were that individual students were being made fun of without their consent, or being made fun of without any prior notice. To which I say, it's about time for some of these law students to grow up - if they can't take some friendly ribbing from their fellow students in a softball show like the Parody, how are they going to survive in the real world? Guess what kids, you're going to be made fun of all the time, without your consent and without any prior notice, and sometimes it's going to upset you. Deal with it.

There is a lot of hysteria from some of the folks who have complained, and lots of misunderstandings. It's easy for these misunderstanding to develop from minor things that turn out to be coincidence. For instance, last year a friend of mine who was acting in the parody played a law student who had been hit by a truck - at first I thought he was doing a parody of me since I had been hit by a truck while walking in a crosswalk in the fall of my 2L year (fortunately I wasn't seriously injured other than some severe bruising), but it turns out it was just a coincidence and he wasn't even aware of my accident.

In addition to the misunderstanding mentioned in the Record article (how hyper-sensitive do you have to be, by the way, to complain about a pretend white Harvard professor portrayed by a white male law student addressing the offhand comment "did you get that?" to a pretend black Harvard law student portrayed by a black female law student in a skit that was about something else entirely), there is another misunderstanding obvious from the article:

"I talk about gender a lot and I have big breasts," stated a 1L in attendance, "does that mean I'm going to be publicly humiliated?"

What this worried 1L evidently fails to realize is that the student parodied for being overly sexual (and who has since complained about being "oversexualized" by the Parody) wasn't parodied because she had big breasts, but because she had numerous nearly nude modelling photos of herself (since taken down) on her Myspace and/or Facebook websites, has done modelling at car shows, and is known for dressing in a manner that emphasizes her physical sexuality. The person responsible for her "oversexualization" is none other than herself. Now, it's certainly her right to present herself in any way she pleases, but it's also the right of the Parody cast to make light of her image.

The Parody, by its very nature, is going to parody things that are out of the ordinary, be they sexual or nonsexual, and this student has certainly gone out of her way to call attention to herself and "earn" a bit of ridicule, just as the other subjects of the Parody have "earned" theirs - by being different. And that's ok, because the Parody is just that - a parody of law school life that highlights the humor of the oddballs that inhabit this place, not some star chamber designed to persecute unique individuals and force them to comply. Sometimes it does a poor job - sometimes it's not very funny, sometimes it's unduly offensive, sometimes it goes on too long & loses its steam, sometimes it's just too damn cheery & upbeat, sometimes it's too cozy with the administration to really be edgy & cutting, but the Parody most certainly doesn't try to enforce a code of speech and behavior on the rest of the law school...unlike, ahem, some folks I could mention.

So, rather than interpreting the Parody's teasing portrayal as a humorous comment on their individual quirkiness, several students have interpreted the Parody in the most negative light possible, and determined that they were made fun of because of stereotypes about their race and/or sex. It's not possible that they themselves might individually be deserving of some teasing - no, no, it must be racism, sexism, or some combination of the two. And if some aspect of their personality or life is distorted or portrayed inaccurately, it's not because the Parody exaggerates for humorous purposes, paints with a broad brush, occasionally has to generalize, and needs to tweak performances to make them work in the overall show. No, it's clearly because the Parody is unapolagetically relying on racial & sexual stereotypes to reenforce the dominant paradigm.

The unfortunate thing is, you can almost always find a way to (mis)interpret anything as racist or sexist if you really go looking for it. I was recently thinking of the Parody's mocking portrayal of a friend of mine - portrayed as a cop-fleeing slacker who spent all his time drinking and partying and wearing beach clothes - and realized how racist/sexist the portrayal could be (mis)construed if he didn't happen to be a white male. But so far it doesn't seem that anyone has stopped and considered the falsifiability of their claims. If everyone portrayed in the parody was portrayed in what could easily be (mis)interpreted as a racist/sexist manner, and many of those portrayed were not actually from minority groups, then doesn't that say a lot more about the bias of the (mis)interpreters than of the performers?

This sort of thing goes beyond mere mainstream political correctness; it shows the consequences of political correctness, having already taken over America's universities, continuing to evolve into a light form of censorship designed to completely neuter (it's not even PC to use that as a metaphor!) anything mildly humorous, fun, edgy, or risque. Anything that has the potential to offend must first be vetted by "affinity groups" to ensure it's uber-PC-compliance and total inoffensiveness. Those who deviate from this script will be accused of racism, sexism, etc. until they repent and pander to their accusers, who more likely than not will never have to prove or even make a very credible case for their claims since the mere accusation of such biases is like an accusation of disease - no one wants to be labeled a Typhoid Mary of Bigotry. The squeaky wheels get the grease, and archaic notions like free speech, academic freedom, and actual, get this, humor, get thrown under the bus of "tolerance" and "diversity" despite the fact that true tolerance and genuine diversity would demand the inclusion and protection of funny, edgy, controversial, biting, and even offensive speech in campus life.

George Will has an interesting column about how a Pew Research Survey has found that conservatives are happier than liberals, with consistent results of Republicans being happier than Democrats since 1972. (Further analysis of this, and some discussion, at Will Wilkinson's The Fly Bottle.)

He theorizes that conservative pessimism keeps conservatives from being disappointed as often as liberals, and lets them be pleasantly surprised when things turn out alright. More importantly, they rely on themselves, not government, to pursue & produce their own happiness:

...because pessimistic conservatives put not their faith in princes — government — they accept that happiness is a function of fending for oneself. They believe that happiness is an activity — it is inseparable from the pursuit of happiness.

The right to pursue happiness is the essential right that government exists to protect. Liberals, taking their bearings, whether they know it or not, from President Franklin Roosevelt's 1936 State of the Union address, think the attainment of happiness itself, understood in terms of security and material well-being, is an entitlement that government has created and can deliver.

So where does this leave libertarians? Well, libertarians certainly seem to be in agreement on the latter point about the pursuit of happiness. Further, it seems that libertarians are often even more pessimistic/cynical than conservatives. But are they, and, more importantly, should they be?

The plight of the libertarian in today's statist world was conveyed well by the brilliant Murray Rothbard in his essay, H. L. Mencken: The Joyous Libertarian.

Any man who is an individualist and a libertarian in this day and age has a difficult row to hoe. He finds himself in a world marked, if not dominated, by folly, fraud, and tyranny. He has, if he is a reflecting man, three possible courses of action open to him: (1) he may retire from the social and political world into his private occupation: in the case of Mencken's early partner, George Jean Nathan, he can retire into a world of purely esthetic contemplation; (2) he can set about to try to change the world for the better, or at least to formulate and propagate his views with such an ultimate hope in mind; or, (3) he can stay in the world, enjoying himself immensely at this spectacle of folly. To take this third route requires a special type of personality with a special type of judgment about the world. He must, on the one hand, be an individualist with a serene and unquenchable sense of self-confidence; he must be supremely "inner-directed" with no inner shame or quaking at going against the judgment of the herd. He must, secondly, have a supreme zest for enjoying life and the spectacle it affords; he must be an individualist who cares deeply about liberty and individual excellence, but who can – from that same dedication to truth and liberty – enjoy and lampoon a society that has turned its back on the best that it can achieve. And he must, thirdly, be deeply pessimistic about any possibility of changing and reforming the ideas and actions of the vast majority of his fellow-men. He must believe that boobus Americanus is doomed to be boobus Americanus forevermore. Put these qualities together, and we are a long way toward explaining the route taken by Henry Louis Mencken.

While conservatives may object to big government as merely inefficient, wasteful, and ineffective, libertarians tend to be much more concerned about the rights being violated by big government programs, both through coercive funding and through the direct and indirect effects of the programs. Further, most libertarians tend to envision a much smaller role for government (perhaps even none at all!), than most conservatives (and don't even get me started on the neo-cons). Given that the current world seems much further from the libertarian ideal than the conservative ideal - and there's no clear path towards achieving libertarian political goals - there seems to be a current of despair in some libertarian circles.

There's a tendency for those in these melancholy circles to feel that they are part of The Remnant, a phrase coined by the great Albert Jay Nock to describe the beseiged pocket of individualist holdouts against the tidal wave of statism. But perhaps they forget that the normally gloomy (his autobiography was entitled Memoirs of a Superfluous Man because he felt himself so out of place and irrelevant in the mid-20th Century) Nock's conception of The Remnant was not entirely pessimistic, but actually somewhat hopeful. As he wrote in his classic 1936 essay Isaiah's Job, to those who might consider being "prophets" of The Remnant:

There is a Remnant there that you know nothing about. They are obscure, unorganized, inarticulate, each one rubbing along as best he can. They need to be encouraged and braced up because when everything has gone completely to the dogs, they are the ones who will come back and build up a new society...You do not know and will never know who the Remnant are, or where they are, or how many of them there are, or what they are doing or will do. Two things you know, and no more: first, that they exist; second, that they will find you.

Back in 1965, Murray Rothbard rejected the link to conservative pessimism in Left and Right:
The Prospects for Liberty and suggested that while short-term prospects may seem dim, "the proper attitude for the Libertarian to take is that of unquenchable long-run optimism." He then laid out the libertarian victory strategy:

What the Marxists would call the “objective conditions” for the triumph of liberty exist, then, everywhere in the world and more so than in any past age; for everywhere the masses have opted for higher living standards and the promise of freedom and everywhere the various regimes of statism and collectivism cannot fulfill these goals. What is needed, then, is simply the “subjective conditions” for victory; that is, a growing body of informed libertarians who will spread the message to the peoples of the world that liberty and the purely free market provide the way out of their problems and crises. Liberty cannot be fully achieved unless libertarians exist in number to guide the peoples to the proper path. But perhaps the greatest stumbling block to the creation of such a movement is the despair and pessimism typical of the Libertarian in today’s world. Much of that pessimism is due to his misreading of history and his thinking of himself and his handful of confreres as irredeemably isolated from the masses and, therefore, from the winds of history. Hence he becomes a lone critic of historical events rather than a person who considers himself as part of a potential movement which can and will make history. The modern Libertarian has forgotten that the Liberal of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries faced odds much more overwhelming than those which face the Liberal of today; for in that era before the Industrial Revolution, the victory of liberalism was far from inevitable. And yet the liberalism of that day was not content to remain a gloomy little sect ; instead, it unified theory and action. Liberalism grew and developed as an ideology and, leading and guiding the masses, made the revolution which changed the fate of the world. By its monumental breakthrough, this revolution of the eighteenth century transformed history from a chronicle of stagnation and despotism to an ongoing movement advancing toward a veritable secular utopia of liberty and rationality and abundance. The Old Order is dead or moribund; and the reactionary attempts to run a modern society and economy by various throwbacks to the Old Order are doomed to total failure. The Liberals of the past have left to modern Libertarians a glorious heritage, not only of ideology but of victories against far more devastating odds.

Indeed, there are an increasing number of optimists in the libertarian camp who have an optimistic take on the prospects for liberty. Many tend to view the rapid growth of technology & global markets, as well as anti-authoritarian social & political trends, as forces that will ultimately reduce the power and control of the state, and protect the rights of individuals. As life expectancy and standards of living continue to steadily climb, concurrent with the exponential increase in global wealth, the prospects of individuals to live long, healthy, wealthy lives seems dramatically better than in the past. While many in the mainstream find postmodernism bleak & disturbing, libertarians take heart in its portrayal of the inevitable rise and eventual global pervasion of capitalism. And while many in the mainstream also condemn the culture of consumerism, libertarians tend to bask in the power it gives to individuals to shape their own lives.

In some ways, technology and the global consumerist market helps create an end-run around statist interference in people's lives, enabling individuals to more easily acquire what they want, do what they want, associate with who they want, live how they want, despite government bans or regulations. Indeed, the future appears to be one full of (meaningful) choices - with the sheer availability of so many different forms of art & entertainment, so many different potential sources of information, so many different ways to interact with others (despite physical distances), so many different goods & services, so many different ways to make a living, so many different ways - in other words - to live one's life.

While the power of the state is unlikely to abate much in the near future, it's ability to actually control people's lives may be withering under the advances of technology and global consumerist markets. Despite the coninued existence of Big Brother, libertarians should take heart in the fact that the future is looking quite bright for the opportunity of individuals to live their lives in a way of their choosing, making meaningful choices that enable them to define their own priorities and values, without the approval or authorization of the state.

The Supreme Court yesterday unanimously upheld the right of a small religious group, O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal, to use a hallucinogenic tea as part of their religious ceremonies, despite the fact that the tea contains a banned hallucinogen.

The Bush administration had argued that there was a compelling governmental interest in prohibiting the use of the tea, but Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the Court, concluded that the government had not demonstrated a compelling need to intervene in the religious practices, as required by the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

So, just to recap the Supreme Court's recent drug war rulings: Banned substances for religious ceremonies? A-okay! (9-0 for) Banned substances for medical treatment? No Way! (6-3 against)

Perhaps Angel Raich & Diane Monson (plaintiffs in last year's disappointing Gonzales v. Raich) should develop a sincere religious belief in the healing properties of cannabis and incorporate cannabis use into their daily religious ceremonies...

I stumbled across this article today in a solicitation to subscribe to The Independent Review. Unfortunately the full article is not available online, so the summary below is all I can provide. I would like to read it, so if anyone can find it online or email me a copy of the PDF/doc, I'd sure appreciate it!

An Ancient Stateless Civilization: Bronze Age India and the State in History

By Thomas J. Thompson

The urban civilization of Harappa in southern Asia flourished economically and culturally for seven centuries, leaving archeologists with artifacts galore but with no evidence of wars or threats of war—or even a state. Most likely, Harappa’s archeological uniqueness has to do with the civilization’s having generated purely voluntary government.

Another such functioning anarchic society, for those interested in such things, is the Icelandic Free State of medieval Iceland, the anarchic private law nature of which was popularized by the self-described "anarchist-anachronist-economist" David Friedman (son of Milton Friedman). Here's an article of his on medieval Iceland: Private Creation and Enforcement of Law: A Historical Case. Another interesting article on the same subject is Roderick Long's "Privatization, Viking Style: Model or Misfortune?"

Another classic example is the so-called "Wild West" period of the American West. For a revisionist view of the Old West as an anarchic society, see An American Experiment in Anarcho-Capitalism: The Not So Wild, Wild West, by Terry Anderson and P.J. Hill, or their recent book, The Not So Wild, Wild West: Property Rights on the Frontier.

For more examples, see Historical Examples of Anarchy without Chaos

The Denver Post has an article on similar union practices in Colorado, entitled Irony marches with union sign carriers.

Unfortunately, much of that article misses the point - even a labor expert quoted in that piece thinks that the irony is that the protestors have no stake in the protest. That may be ironic, but the deeper irony is hidden further in the article. In Denver, day-laborers from El Centro Humanitario Para los Trabajadores are paid $10/hr, which a person affiliated with that day labor center claims is a "living wage."

But scroll down to near the bottom of the article and you'll discover the reason for the protest:

It [the union] wants those [non-union] contractors to pay an "area standard wage" of approximately $16.25 per hour and to provide their employees with retirement benefits, training programs and family health-care coverage. And it's willing to picket those who refuse.

Yeah, the union is willing to picket others but it's not itself willing to pay those who picket the "area standard wage" or give them "retirement benefits, training programs and family health-care coverage."

Union member Gary Ulmer, 48, who was working in a building nearby, shrugged when asked what he thought about day-laborers picketing for the union. "It gives them a wage," he said.

Yeah, and so does working a non-union construction job...

And then there's this gem:
By paying low wages, contractors help depress pay for workers other than their own, said Joe Avila, 50, a union carpenter who pickets because he has been out of work for six months. "This affects everybody, and it brings down the standard of pay and health care."

So, what about unions that are paying low wages, Joe? Why do they get a free pass?

This hilarious Detroit News article reveals that unions have been hiring the homeless - at minimum wage and without health care benefits - to picket at non-union job sites. Oh, the humanity! Oh, the hypocrisy!

In Washington, Baltimore, Atlanta and elsewhere in the country, union organizers are scouring shelters and recruiting homeless people to staff their picket lines, paying just above minimum wage and failing to provide health benefits.

The national carpenters' union, which broke from the AFL-CIO four years ago in a bitter dispute over organizing strategies and other issues, is hiring homeless people to stage noisy protests at nonunion construction sites.

"We're giving jobs to people who didn't have jobs, people who in some cases couldn't secure work," said George Eisner, head of the union's mid-Atlantic regional council in Baltimore.

God, I love these quotes. So, um, how exactly is this different from the employees at the non-union construction site that you're protesting? I wonder if these union schmucks realize the extent to which their defense of this practice undermines the whole purpose of unions.

Neil Bernstein, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis who specializes in labor and employment law, said unions that use such a tactic are guilty of practicing a double standard.

"They're basically doing what they're criticizing the employers for doing — getting the cheapest people to do the job," he said.

What, unions not actually protecting the rights of their workers? Acting hypocritically? Igoring pro-labor ideology when it's inconvenient? I'm shocked, shocked.

"The fact that the people demonstrating were not members of the union doesn't make much difference," Sweeney said. "What matters is that the carpenters working on the building had no health care and no pension."

When it was noted that the homeless pickets also had no benefits, Sweeney responded: "Our hope is that those workers — that all workers — would have health benefits, but that is a bigger issue."

Gee, that's interesting. So all you have to do to make the union happy is HOPE that your workers would have health benefits? You don't have to actually do anything about it as an employer? I'm sure big business will be interested to hear this...

Sweeney expressed the hope that the homeless protesters "may work themselves into a full-time job where they would get benefits."

Yes, exactly! But then that kinda ruins the whole point of having unions, now doesn't it Johnny boy? (Ok, so it actually doesn't undermine the real purpose of having unions - consolidating power for and lining the pockets of union bigwigs & other...ahem...associates, and "progressive" political organization.)

A demonstrator in Washington, Nicey Howards, said the temporary protesters earn $8 an hour — just a dollar above the legal minimum wage in Washington — with no benefits. While she felt the job wasn't ideal, Howards was glad she could earn a little money while looking for something better.

Each week, Howards said, she works 20 hours, the maximum time allowed by the carpenters' union, bringing home $160.

The union organizers allow the hired protesters to take two-minute breaks, Howards said, but dock their pay for the time off.

God, someone needs to start a union for these people to save them from the horribly despotic...um...er...unions that are working them to the bone in sweatshop-like conditions!

Radley Balko had a good, if too short, op-ed on police militarization in the Washington Post on Sunday.

While this has been a disturbing trend for awhile now, it's becoming even more problematic as SWAT teams are being used for arrests of nonviolent offendors and even for general purpose activities:

On Jan. 24, a SWAT team in Fairfax shot and killed Salvatore J. Culosi Jr., an optometrist who was under investigation for gambling. According to a Jan. 26 front-page story in The Post, Culosi had emerged from his home to meet an undercover officer when a police tactical unit swarmed around him. An officer's gun discharged, killing the suspect. Culosi, police said, was unarmed and had displayed no threatening behavior.

It's unlikely that the officer who shot Culosi did so intentionally. But it's also unlikely that the investigation into this shooting will address why police sent a military-style unit to arrest an optometrist under investigation for a nonviolent crime and why the officers had their guns drawn when approaching a man with no history of violence.

[...]

During the past 15 years, The Post and other media outlets have reported on the unsettling "militarization" of police departments across the country. Armed with free surplus military gear from the Pentagon, SWAT teams have multiplied at a furious pace. Tactics once reserved for rare, volatile situations such as hostage takings, bank robberies and terrorist incidents increasingly are being used for routine police work.

More police abuse fun:

A man walking his son to the bus in Dallas was arrested, roughed up, pepper sprayed, cuffed, and kept in jail for eleven days. He was charged with jaywalking as best I can tell. His 14 year-old son may also have been assaulted by one of the officers. They may or may not have been guilty of jaywalking. It appears that the real reason for the arrest & abuse was that Dallas transit police felt the need to teach a lesson to "longhairs" - both Todd Lyon and his son Jared have long locks. A particular amusing part of the story is that the transit police spokesman initially insisted several times that Lyon was arrested for "resisting arrest."

Full story here.

In further War on Jaywalking news, a man was reportedly ticketed for jaywalking in DC after being hit by a car; he was "badly injured and lying unresponsive at a busy intersection" when the $5 ticket was issued. The man later died of the injuries.

Hat tip: Radley Balko.

Radley Balko at The Agitator, an outstanding blog, has a fascinating, but terrible, story about Cory Maye, a black man who sits on death row after being convicted of shooting a white police officer who stormed the wrong home in a drug bust gone wrong.

Here are the basics, but read the story for the full picture:

Let's summarize: Cops mistakenly break down the door of a sleeping man, late at night, as part of drug raid. Turns out, the man wasn't named in the warrant, and wasn't a suspect. The man, frigthened for himself and his 18-month old daughter, fires at an intruder who jumps into his bedroom after the door's been kicked in. Turns out that the man, who is black, has killed the white son of the town's police chief. He's later convicted and sentenced to death by a white jury. The man has no criminal record, and police rather tellingly changed their story about drugs (rather, traces of drugs) in his possession at the time of the raid.

The story gets more bizarre from there.

Such problems are not uncommon when no-knock search warrants (or similary rapid entry warrants) are used. Such warrants, which are supposed to be restricted to instances in which there is a specific heightened danger to the officers because of the subject's violent past or other specific factors, are often abused in drug raids, where they are often used to gain the element of surprise even when no additional danger seems likely.

Update:

Radley has done some further investigation, reported here, where he preliminarily confirms that the search warrant did not name Cory Maye, but rather his neighbor. He offers a transcipt of his conversation with the court clerk of Jefferson Davis County, Mississippi, who he asked to skim the search warrant before sending it to him:

Her: You want me to read the whole thing? It's very long.

Me: No, that's okay. I just have a hunch about what's in it that I was hoping you could check out for me.

Her: What would you like me to look for?

Me: Are you familiar with the Cory Maye case?

Her: Oh, yes. I know what happened.

Me: My guess is that you'll find the name of Jaimie Wilson on that warrant, but you won't find the name of Cory Maye. Could you check to satisfy my curiosity before you send me a copy?

Her: Okay. Let's see.... Jaimie....

Me: Wilson...

Her: Yes, now I see his name is on the warrant. Jaimie Wilson.

Me: Now look for Cory Maye.

Her: Silence.

Me: Corey Maye?

Her: Silence.

Me: Is he in there anywhere?

Her: Oh my.

A 50-year-old grandmother of five is scheduled to be arraigned tomorrow for charges relating to her refusal to produce identification on a public bus that passed through the Denver Federal Center in Lakewood, CO. Apparently, everyone aboard the public bus, not just those who exit at the Federal Center - a large complex that has offices for agencies like the U.S. Geological Survey and the Bureau of Land Management - must produce IDs for inspection by federal guards. Deborah Davis, whose work commute put her on a bus that passed through the Federal Center, initially complied with the requests but later refused, citing her constitutional rights.

It's important to note that her position is different from that of Dudley Hiibel in last year's Supreme Court case, where the Court ruled that a criminal suspect may be required to identify himself. Davis was not a criminal suspect, but merely a passenger on a bus that passed through a federal area. However, even in her case, I suspect that a judge will defer to the federal government's assertion that such ID checks are necessary for security on federal property.

While her legal position may be rather tenuous, I admire her political stance and her spirit. I also really like a few of the quotes from articles covering the event about how the ID check has less to do with security and more to do with creating an atmosphere of obedience:

"It's wrong," she [Davis] said Monday. "It's not even security. It's just a lesson in compliance - the big guys pushing the little guys around."

and

According to Davis, the guards barely glance at the IDs, let alone write down names or check them against a list.

"It's just an obedience test," says Gail Johnson, a lawyer recruited to represent Davis by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado. "It does nothing for security."


UPDATE: According to Papers Please, charges against Davis have been dropped.

This week sees the debut of Cato Unbound, a new website devoted to promoting big-picture intellectual discussions led by a provocative article from a leading thinker and thoughtful responses from other leading thinkers.

In their inaugural discussion, Nobel laureate James M. Buchanan, founder of the public choice school of economics, offers a proposal on new amendments to the Constitution. Responding to Buchanan's proposal will be Akhil Reed Amar, Judge Alex Kozinski, and William A. Niskanen.

Buchanan fires the opening salvo by proposing three new amendments: fiscal responsibility, political nondiscrimination, and natural liberty:

Fiscal irresponsibility stares us in the face and cries out for correction. The near-total disregard for any pretense of generality in the distribution of apparent governmental largesse, along with the increasing manipulation of the tax structure, can only be turned around by constitutional prohibition of discrimination. Existing rules, as interpreted, have not been successful in guaranteeing the natural liberty of citizens to engage in voluntary exchange, both among themselves within the political jurisdiction and with others beyond national boundaries.

Buchanan himself acknowledges that his third proposed amendment, natural liberty, is a radical proposal:

The third proposal, treated here, is dramatically different because its endorsement, even as principle, requires rethinking the two-century presumption that governmental action is preferred to that generated through markets. The mind-set that elevates collective action to its idealized image while ignoring the reality of its operation must be exorcised, and especially as this mind-set has come to dominate legal interpretation after the usurpation of constitutional limits in the Roosevelt era.

Buchanan also acknowledges that although his proposed amendments are designed generally to control the size and influence of government, they are not foolproof:

As already noted, the three basic changes would not, in themselves, insure against a governmental sector that is Leviathan-like in size. The proposals are procedural rather than substantive. They would not prevent constituencies, through ordinary democratic processes, from choosing to levy general tax rates sufficient to finance a massive budget that embodies generalized benefits. Perhaps the culture of dependence is so entrenched in public attitudes that a large and cumbersome nonproductive welfare state remains in prospect. The test should be carried out, nonetheless, before proposals are advanced that reflect abandonment of the fundamental democratic faith.

Akhil Reed Amar's response, a more technical, legal rebuttal that raises a lot of questions but answers few, has already been posted.

I myself am most looking forward to Judge Kozinski's contribution to the discussion.

The CIA has been denying lately that they use torture to gather information from prisoners.

A recent USA Today article contains this quote from Porter Goss, CIA Director:

"This agency does not do torture. Torture does not work," Goss said. "We use lawful capabilities to collect vital information, and we do it in a variety of unique and innovative ways, all of which are legal and none of which are torture."\

However, here is a description of one of six "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" used by the CIA

Water Boarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.

Between the Orwellian double-speak and the actual use of, yes, torture, the "good guys" don't seem so good anymore.

Hat Tip: Reason Hit & Run

This year I've been writing an arts & culture column for the Record entitled Deviant Behavior. My most recent column has two items of potential interest to Federalists - a brief critical commentary on police procedures for conducting a prostitution sting in Harvard Square, and a mini-op-ed on Playmobil's privacy violation playset.

A few weeks ago, I also wrote a mini-review of Serenity, a movie that I think libertarian and small government conservatives will both appreciate and enjoy tremendously.

Here's that review:

"Serenity - Best SF Film in Years

Not only is Serenity the best science fiction film since The Matrix, it is also one of the best films of the year, in any genre. A low-tech space western with no aliens or laser guns, Serenity is a follow-up to the prematurely cancelled TV series Firefly, but remains easily accessible to the casual viewer. Created by Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), the world of Serenity is political realist's version of Star Wars in which the rebels lost and the governing authority isn't a cackling evil empire but an ostensibly benevolent democracy, the Alliance.

The film focuses on the adventures of the scofflaw crew of Serenity, a small smuggling ship owned by Captain Malcolm 'Mal' Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), an unreconstructed rebel veteran of the failed war of independence. Serenity has picked up a dangerous passenger - unstable pubescent psychic prodigy River Tam (Summer Glau), who's on the run with her brother after he rescued her from a covert Alliance training facility. A ruthless Alliance agent, concerned that River may have learned about dark Alliance secrets with her psychic powers, is in hot pursuit. This doesn't sit well with hardheaded Mal, who doesn't cotton to Alliance authority one bit and eventually declares, "No more running. I aim to misbehave." Pairing roller-coaster thrills with an intelligent political plot about abuse of power, Serenity offers hilarious quips, chases, romance, gunfights, fistfights, swordfights, space battles, run-ins with cannibalistic Reavers, and a sophisticated philosophical subtext."

Join us TODAY for a lively and timely talk about the constitutionality of public religious expression in the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent Ten Commandments cases.



What's God Got To Do With It?:

The Constitution and Public Religious Expression



A talk by:



Jeff Ventrella, Esq.

Alliance Defense Fund



Tuesday, November 8, 2005

5:00pm

Hauser 104



All are welcome. Refreshments will be served.

CIA Operates Secret Prison Network

"The CIA has operated a secret prison system where more than 100 terror suspects have been locked up since Sept. 11.

The so-called "black sites" — which were so covert that only a handful of government officials even knew about them until today — operated over the past four years in eight different countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several Eastern European states, according to a story first reported today in the Washington Post."

But it's ok because we're the good guys...