Archive for the ‘Constitutionality’ Category
Internet uprising overturns Australian censorship law
Friday, February 5th, 2010I don't think this news story got enough attention: from Ars Technica I read that an internet uprising led to the overturning of a very Orwellian censorship law in Australia. The law, which had taken effect just weeks prior, banned anonymous political commenting online. Can you imagine the twisted set ...
Campaign finance reform is pretty simple
Monday, January 25th, 2010Many of my friends and millions of people in the blogosphere/social-mediasphere have expressed their outrage and indignation at the Supreme Court's ruling that corporations can spend as much as they want to promote or oppose whatever political candidates or causes that they want. One of my friends said she was ...
Monopolistic law-enforcement systems are a racket
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009My friend got a new car, a white Subaru Legacy, to replace his old white Subaru Legacy. Apparently, Michigan law lets you transfer your old license plates to your new car in some (all?) situations, so he just took his license plate off of his old Legacy and put it ...
Anarchist Elliot Madison wrongfully arrested, robbed
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009In a continuation of law-enforcement agencies' general disdain for and dismissal of our civil liberties, Elliot Madison, a self-described anarchist, was arrested for using Twitter and a police scanner to help G20 protesters coordinate their efforts and avoid police officers. The charges on which he was held don't indicate any ...
Obama Defense Dept. advocates post-acquittal detentions
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009We'll see if this actually happens: Defense Department General Counsel Jeh Johnson moved the Obama administration into new territory from a civil liberties perspective. Asked by Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) the politically difficult but entirely fair question about whether terrorism detainees acquitted in courts could be released in the United States, ...
Obama’s next terrible idea: Cyber Czar
Sunday, May 31st, 2009There is no possible way this can end well. Obama continues to reveal his true authoritarian colors for all to see with his announcement of a new cyber security office to be headed by a "Cyber Czar". Like everything else the government touches, this will be bad for everyone involved ...
The Chrysler takeover and the rule of law
Monday, May 25th, 2009Joshua Claybourn summarizes why the Obama regime's management of the Chrysler bankruptcy is worse than just more government intervention. It violates the most important aspects of a sound legal system: the sanctity of contracts and the rule of law. Under these long standing bankruptcy laws—enacted and enforced by the federal government ...
Obama DOJ: Government officials are above the law
Friday, April 10th, 2009Literally. This is the legal doctrine the Obama regime's Department of Justice [sic] is invoking in its recommendation that Jewell v. National Security Agency be dismissed. Kevin Carson, in his column National Security: The Last Refuge of Scoundrels is incisive: If the Obama Justice Department’s legal doctrine is allowed to stand, ...
Facebook “thoughts” of the day
Saturday, April 4th, 2009A friend's Facebook status: "...says its about time the government passes some serious gun control laws. to hell with the right to bear arms." Her friends' responses: "hear hear!" "No guns and arms? That settles it, no more gym." (admittedly, kind of funny) "But then what the hell am I going ...
Early English law screwed the masses to benefit the aristocracy
Thursday, November 13th, 2008In my ongoing and very occasional progression through Bruce Benson's masterpiece The Enterprise of Law, I am learning more and more about the origins of authoritarian (State-originated and -enforced) law and its usurpation of customary (community-originated and reciprocal-incentive-enforced) law in Medieval England. The main thrust of chapter 3 is that ...
Educating for Anarchism, Blagnet.net edition
Friday, October 31st, 2008Mike over at nostate.com has an occasional post entitled Educating for Anarchism, in which he posts real life exchanges of his political beliefs with others. Below, you will find an exchange with my brother in a Facebook message thread (which sadly, is the best means he has of keeping in ...
Anti–universal health care proposal in Arizona
Sunday, October 26th, 2008I was intrigued by this George Will column in the Washington Post, which might mark the first time that has happened to me. He begins: On Election Day, Arizonans can give the nation the gift of a good example. They can enact a measure that could shape the health-care debate that ...
Vote with your feet, not your mind
Thursday, September 4th, 2008In an astonishing departure from the norm, James Ostrowski blagged about something unrelated to Buffalo, NY, his father's career in Buffalo, NY, or his own amazing prescience in making political predictions. He's frustrated that the Democrats look as though they're about to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory once ...
A glimpse of anarchic rights, laws, and socioeconomic organization in online communities
Sunday, August 24th, 2008This is one of the most interesting and thought-provoking news articles I've read in a while: Rights like free speech don't always extend online. It is about the different rules and restrictions established and enforced by online companies (Yahoo!, YouTube, MySpace, GoDaddy, etc.) and the consequences of their actions, their ...
Paul Craig Roberts on the “terrorist watch list”
Sunday, July 20th, 2008Paul Craig Roberts violates Godwin's Rule but still manages to make excellent points in a good column about the ludicrous terrorist watch list and no-fly list maintained by the Department of Homeland Security. That's real talent. Money quote: The ACLU says that "putting a million names on a watch list is ...
David Z. on District of Columbia vs. Heller, Second Amendment
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008David Z. at No Third Solution had some excellent commentary on the recent ruling by the Supreme Court that (as I understand) Washington, D.C.'s gun-control laws were unconstitutional. It is the type of in-depth and thoughtful commentary that has been missing from our web page for a few weeks, which ...
Federalism and gay marriage
Saturday, May 17th, 2008I came across a blag that supports the Libertarian Party in the name of gay, lesbian, and bixexual rights, Outright Libertarians, and its proprietor, Brian Miller, has been writing a lot about the ruling by the California Supreme Court that California's illegalization of gay marriages was unconstitutional. In an example ...
They graciously hand down our rights
Thursday, May 15th, 2008We should…be able to see that our interest would be best served not by asking the state to promulgate our values but by forbidding the state to promulgate any values at all. If the state can espouse some value that we love, it can, with equal justice, espouse others we ...
Statolatry on the radio
Monday, April 21st, 2008A quibble I have with women, by and large, as regards their moral-political thought processes is that they are too hesitant to take a definitive side, to make a polarizing statement, to pronounce a strong (negative) judgment of people, ideas, or institutions. I made sure to say "by and large" ...
More rational thoughts on FLDS kidnapping
Sunday, April 20th, 2008I have decided I am an inadequate blagger. This is because I don't have enough time for writing and can't focus and materialize my thoughts into excellent blag posts, unless I take a lot of time for it. So I just link to other, (semi)professional writers who do it much ...
Insightful thoughts on the Eldorado polygamy compound raid
Saturday, April 19th, 2008I felt the need to chime in about the potential rights and certain wrongs of the raid by Texas police of the Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints polygamist ranch in Eldorado, but I think Wendy McElroy expressed thoughts very similar to my own much better than I could have. If I have ...