December 2004 Archives

Eric Scheie describes the libertarian viewpoint as it contrasts with mainstream political though:

...[O]ne of the most painful difficulties I have found in having a libertarian viewpoint: being a libertarian means letting most people down. That's because most people are liberal or conservative, and when they follow this natural tendency to see what they want, why, liberals often try to see a libertarian as a liberal, while conservatives will see him as a conservative. But then, once the libertarian is forced to let his new friends down (by saying stuff they don't want to hear), then liberals will call him conservative, and conservatives will call him liberal.

Which means that in real life, to be an honest libertarian means that you'll be at the very least letting most people down, at worst hated.

I haven't had a lot hate directed at me for my political views. A few nasty comments on this blog, maybe.

AP Newswire:

Oklahoma Highway Patrol troopers found 610 pounds of marijuana hidden in caskets being hauled in a truck stopped near this eastern Oklahoma town.

[...]

The marijuana was found after troopers were given permission to search the truck.

"Hynd is 26 and has never been in any kind of trouble," said his attorney, Donn Baker. "He was just delivering caskets for a living. He didn't check inside the caskets for drugs would you?"

I don't know that ignorance will be a good legal defence. This should be a lesson for everyone. Don't give police permission to search, even if you are innocent.

The Sweet Science: McCain Plows ahead after boxing bill falters -

Nonetheless, Senator McCain, who has always believed government is your friend; more government means more friends, looks ahead to embarking on an extremely aggressive legislative program when the 109th Congress convenes in January - enough to keep his staff and public relations consultants busy for quite some time.

* A bill requiring that Jackie Chan be licensed in any state in which he beats up someone in a kung fu movie.

And many more.

Will Collier nominates Glenn Reynolds. Really! It's a nomination that pays tribute to the effect of blogs on the political scene this year, more than just a tribute to the man. Instapundit is the center of the blogosphere nervous system, though. I suppose Time could do worse.

I like the idea of Burt Rutan as MOTY. It's an optimistic choice, hoping that man will keep the pioneer spirit, and Rutan's initial foray out of the atmosphere will lead to bigger things.

Like most of the blogosphere, it seems, I'll be following blogger John Perry Barlow's court case.

If he posts some method of contributing to his legal defense fund I'll try to pass it on.

David Kopel celebrates Jewish resistance to tyranny through history.

Catallarchy quoting Steve Landsburg:

...I am frankly a lot more worried about my daughter’s becoming an environmentalist than about her becoming a Christian. Fourth, we face no current threat of having Christianity imposed on us by petty tyrants; the same can not be said of environmentalism. My county government never tried to send me a New Testament, but it did send me a recycling bin.

Jed on property rights vs the RKBA.

It has taken a great mass of bone-headed thinking coming out of DC to bring me out of my blogging hiatus. I'm talking about the steroid scandal in professional baseball, and Senator McCain's threat to introduce a steroid ban in Congress. Even Pres. Bush has weighed in, and it seems there is support for such thing on the hill. I doubt that this will happen, it's just a threat to force MLB to clean up its own act. But in the mean time, I'd like our elected 'servants' to cite the part of the Constitution that allows the Federal government to regulate baseball.

Sure. Not that McCain and company care one whit about the Constitution, but our own Governor Owens has volunteered to bypass that issue by threatening to test visiting baseball players here in Colorado:

"Just as every state regulates boxing, a state could do the same thing for baseball," Owens said.

Two short points to note from the Governor's statement; first that if the rules of a children's game are subject to government intervention then is there anything that's not?

Second, see how one small piece of government encroachment, in this case boxing regulation, really does create a slippery slope of advancing government control.

I think so.