law
stcynic | September 21, 2005Mark Olson of Pseudo-Polymath has a post about rights and ethics in competition that I must respond to more fully than I already have in the comments on his blog. To begin with, I must take issue with his characterization of the dispute:
The two extreme positions on such laws lie between the Libertarian/Rights based stance of feeling that the law should provide complete license with regard to what is allowed between consenting adults and the Liberal/Conservative/Ethics based stance which holds that laws should support and agree with the ethical values we "should" hold (Liberals and…
stcynic | May 26, 2005Interesting little tidbit. William Pryor, who was a recess appointment to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals by President Bush, has issued a ruling denying Roy Moore's Foundation for Moral Law attempt to file an amicus brief in the Cobb County evolution disclaimer case. Pryor was the Alabama attorney general who, despite his agreement with Moore on the legality of his Ten Commandments monument, enforced the federal court order that it be removed. Moore's response was predictable:
In a statement, Moore said the ruling showed "clear contempt for the text of the Constitution" and suggested the…
stcynic | May 25, 2005Stephen Bainbridge has an excellent post up about the filibuster and its essentially conservative nature. He rightly blasts today's partisan right wingers - as opposed to genuine conservatives - who are seeking to get rid of it purely for short term political gain. After linking to everyone from Michelle Malkin to James Dobson freaking out about the deal to avoid the nuclear option, he writes:
Will somebody please get these folks some cheese to go with their whine? I find these reactions not only short-sighted but also surprisingly unconservative. They reflect a willingness to put possible…
stcynic | September 28, 2004Jerry Falwell's Liberty University is starting a law school. I'm sure it'll be every bit as rigorous as Pat Robertson's law school. How rigorous is that? Well, out of 184 law schools ranked, they're 177th in the percentage of students passing the bar the first time and 178th in overall program achievement.
stcynic | August 26, 2004I'm so pissed off about this that I woke up at 2:30 am seething and I had to get up and write this. Just read this and tell me that this doesn't deserve a gold medal in the 100 meter stupid hypocrite freestyle:
President George W. Bush plans to seek a court order to force the U.S. Federal Election Commission to stop all political advertising by independent groups, said spokesman Scott McClellan.
Bush asked Senator John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, to help end advertising by political organizations known as 527 groups, named for the section of the Internal Revenue Service code that…
stcynic | August 26, 2004Definitely go read Jon Rowe's new post on the misnamed Constitution Party. It is 100% on the mark.
stcynic | August 23, 2004I've been meaning to write about this for quite some time, since it actually happened a few weeks ago, but it kept slipping my mind. Now that he's published an article about it, it's as good a time as any. Timothy Sandefur of the always challenging Freespace blog, in his day job as an attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation, has helped secure an enormous victory for property rights in a case called Wayne County v. Hathcock. This decision by the Michigan Supreme Court overturns the Poletown decision, one of the oldest and most influential decisions regarding eminent domain in the country.…
stcynic | August 9, 2004Here's how I'm gonna vote in November. I'm going to vote for the first candidate that says he'll support a new law allowing us to take comment spammers, email spammers and those who write popup ads for websites, and ritually disembowl them, behead them, and then parade their lifeless bodies through the streets while beating them with sticks wrapped in barbed wire.
stcynic | August 9, 2004In perusing Jen Shroder's hysterical website, I came across this little gem, which I debunked back in January. It claims that this alleged terrorist, Alamoudi, helped write the guidelines on religion in schools that allows schools to induct kids into Islam. It's complete and utter nonsense, of course, and it's based upon a Newsmax article entitled Jailed Terror Suspect Helped ACLU Draft Schools' Anti-Christian Rules. Big shock that Shroder swallowed this bunch of nonsense hook, line and sinker, without bothering to check it for accuracy. Here is what I wrote in response to another blogger…
stcynic | August 5, 2004Jon Rowe has an excellent essay up about Judge Roy Moore and the contradiction at the heart of his claim that the ten commandments are part of the organic law of America, a claim explicitly rejected by Jefferson and Madison. Also has some fascinating details about the often-mentioned mural of the ten commandments on the Supreme Court building. Definitely worth the read.
stcynic | August 4, 2004Wow, this guy is really a piece of work. Judge Moore is now appealing his ouster as Chief Justice of Alabama to the Supreme Court, claiming - and this is really funny - that his ouster established an "unconstitutional religious test for office". A religious test for office would be, for example, a requirement that only Christians be allowed to hold public office. Moore is claiming the opposite:
"Certainly you should not be removed from office for professing a belief in God," Moore said at a news conference.
Unbelievable, isn't it? Roy, you weren't removed from office for professing a belief…
stcynic | July 29, 2004Brian Leiter says that if us libertarian-minded bloggers aren't blogging about the ridiculous "free speech zones" at the Democratic National Convention, we ought to resign from the human race. That's a little strong, I'd say, but I certainly agree with him on the absurdity of what is going on. You can see pictures of the cage they're putting protestors in here and a description of this hospitable place here:
Demonstrators who want to be within sight and sound of the delegates entering and leaving the Democratic National Convention at the Fleet Center in Boston this coming week will be forced…
stcynic | July 28, 2004The Patriot Act, the most misnamed legislation in history, was used last year to levy a $10 million fine on Paypal, owned by Ebay, for allowing their clients to use the service to send funds to online gambling sites. What does this have to do with stopping terrorism? Not a goddamn thing. But it's yet another reason why this law should be repealed, and why we should throw out of office everyone who voted for it - which would be virtually everyone in Congress. In the Senate, only one Senator, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, voted against the bill. And yes, that includes John Kerry, who is now…
stcynic | July 22, 2004You have to see his latest fisking, this one of Thomas Krannawitter. Krannawitter takes the social conservative position, that morality trumps liberty, against the libertarian position, that liberty is paramount unless one can show a compelling reason for violating it. Sandefur dissects him like a surgeon. Excellent work. As is his latest post on Panda's Thumb.
stcynic | July 13, 2004I know, I know, you probably think that he's either paying me to link to him or I'm some sort of groupie, but the truth is I just think he tends to express the opinions we share on this subject better than I do, so why reinvent the wheel? And if he keeps writing great stuff on constitutional law I'm just going to have to keep sending people there to read it. His latest post is a follow up to the earlier discussion on judicial review, specifically a reply to the Curmudgeonly Clerk on the subject of the proper role of judicial review and the rhetoric of Orrin Hatch about courts usurping the…
stcynic | July 9, 2004If you have any interest at all in constitutional law, I strongly recommend that you read Timothy Sandefur's post on demagoguery and the claim that "unelected judges" are "usurping the will of the people". It's one of those essays you read and think, "Damn, I wish I'd written that. He says exactly what I wanted to say about it." The specific issue is gay marriage and Senator Orrin Hatch's article on the subject here, but what he is really talking about is the broader issue of the role courts were intended to play in our system of government.
When conservatives scream about "activist judges"…
stcynic | June 29, 2004Not often do I read something on Southern Appeal with which I agree completely, but William Watkins post on yesterday's decisions is right on the money. My reaction to the decisions, like his, is decidedly mixed, but on the whole I was happy to see that most of the justices were not willing to allow the administration to do whatever it wanted regardless of constitutional protections just because there's a war going on.
I'm a bit disappointed in the Padilla decision because it's one of those typical Rehnquist-type decisions that rely on the most irrelevant technicalities rather than on the…
stcynic | May 30, 2004I've made no secret of my utter distaste for Robert Bork and his ideology. In previous posts (here, here and here, as well as in several essays dealing with constitutional law in general) I have made the case that Bork is, for all intents and purposes, an advocate of theocracy and authoritarianism. His voluminous writings, which call for a "law based on morality", are little more than a long argument to justify controlling other people's lives. Now comes Walter Olson of the Manhattan Institute, with a detailed look at Bork's philosophy and how it divides conservatives along the lines of…
stcynic | May 11, 2004Timothy Sandefur has posted an excellent essay on libertarian judicial philosophy, as part of an ongoing debate going on between myself, Sandefur, Jonathan Rowe, Randy Barnett and Larry Solum (on the libertarian side) and Clayton Cramer, Stephen Bainbridge and Owen Courreges (on the conservative side). The cries of "judicial tyranny" are heard from conservatives whenever a judge prevents them from imposing their will on an unpopular minority, but as Sandefur points out, they have a bizarre definition of "liberty". They think that the right of an individual to be free to live his life as he…
stcynic | May 7, 2004My thanks to Jon Rowe for the very nice comments in this post, where he references some entries I wrote on the founding fathers and Christianity. He chides me for missing why the Patrick Henry quote is also fraudulent, and I have to confess that I didn't really give it much thought. The quote in question is this:
"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great Nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For that reason alone, people of other faiths have been afforded freedom of worship here."
Since I know…