Back Home Again

Well, it was nice while it lasted, but my week's vacation has come to an end. After catching the "red eye" out of San Jose last night, I'm back home. I have to hand it to myself: after a week in neocon pseudo-religious propoganda hell, I managed to avoid getting into a single philosophical, political, or religious argument with either of my parents. This, dear readers, is a new record!

I'll fill you in on details as soon as I recover from the jetlag I always suffer from after a cross-country trip (it usually takes me two or three days to get the body clock fully back in synch).

I hope everyone has had a good week(end). Take care and God bless.

The Roberts Nomination: A Lot of Meaningless Hot Air

Again violating my promise to myself not to post anything while on vacation, I guess I’ve found myself with a bit more idle time than I anticipated. In light of the incipient ruckus over supreme court (yes, those are lower-case letters) nominee John Roberts, I just thought I’d comment on some of the current controversy. While the full-fledged confirmation battle in the senate (again, small “s”) has yet to erupt, though indeed it will, I’d just like to make a brief observation on the current source of contention, which is Robert’s alleged membership in the Federalist Society.

According to its website, the society is a grouping of conservatives and libertarians whose mission is to promote the principles of republican government; to wit, the idea that “the state exists to preserve freedom, that the separation of governmental powers is central to our Constitution, and that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be.”

Admirable, most certainly. There is nothing here that any libertarian lover of freedom will disagree with. Nor do I (yet) have any reason to doubt that Judge Roberts himself personally adheres to the principles of the society of which he is a member. Furthermore, no one who has even casually observed congress (same spelling rule) in action over the last six decades will be the least bit surprised that Democratic members of that body, in particular, are horrified at the very idea of a non-activist judge ascending to the nation’s highest court. So far, so normal, as far as supreme court confirmation proceedings are concerned.

What the libertarian cynic who has lost all faith in the existing system will next ask is: Is there a snowball’s chance in the netherworld that Judge Roberts will either 1) be confirmed by senate that is at best spineless and at worst hostile once the extent of his involvement in FEDSOC becomes known; 2) adhere to his federalist principles once seated on the bench, or 3) prove himself to be a genuine libertarian who shows consistent and steadfast respect for the Constitution even when he is the in the minority, often as a lone dissenter on controversial decisions?

Recent history does not offer encouragement. While Justices Scalia and Thomas are currently held up on neon-drenched pedestals as the embodiment of “strict constructionist” jurists, time and again they have demonstrated that when it comes to a decision between the rights of the individual and the rights of the State, they will throw their lot in with the State every time (their recent dissents in the Kelo v. City of New London decision being more a matter of judicial mechanics than grounded in libertarian principles). In this alone there is little reason to believe that Judge Roberts will break the mold, particularly given the contempt with which modern presidential administrations have treated the Constitution. Dubya’s flagrant shredding of the Bill of Rights gives us little reason to believe that he has any genuine love of FEDSOC principles and that Judge Roberts’ membership in said organization is more likely an annoying detail in his curriculum vitae, an obstacle to be overcome in the confirmation process, than a principled selling point to the senate. Look for Bush and his coterie of enforcers to pressure the judge into downplaying his membership in FEDSOC, possibly culminating in the issuance of a mild apology for said membership.

So, in sum, look for the status quo (i.e., judicial dictatorship) to continue on its full-speed-ahead course in abetting the destruction of limited government and the checks and balances system. Since the addition of one strict-constructionist justice is a token gesture that will do nothing to check the high court’s appetite for expanding its own power, Roberts’ confirmation and accession to the bench will be meaningless in the extreme (the words “fat chance” come to mind when pondering the idea that anyone else with his credentials will be allowed anywhere near a seat on the high court). For libertarians to work themselves into a frenzy over the possibility of change is, once again, foolish and naïve in the extreme.

A Little Vacation Reading

I hadn't intended to post anything while on this vacation (mostly for want of steady access to the Internet), but I've been browsing a copy of David McCullough's new book 1776, his history of the beginnings of the American Revolution that my father ordered some weeks ago and that came in the mail the day after my arrival here in San Jose. Some of you may recognize McCullough as, among other things, the author of the Harry Truman biography that came out several years ago and as the narrator of Ken Burns' documentary series The Civil War. Whatever else you may think of McCullough's viewpoints on history or his politics, I've so far found 1776, at least my reading of the first one hundred or so pages of it, to contain some amazing parallels to (and lessons for) today's situation in Iraq. The descriptions McCullough cites by contemporaries, both British and American, of the early colonial army as a ragtag, undisciplined, poorly provisioned and poorly trained bunch of country bumpkins seem eerily similar to the derisive descriptions of the Iraqi "insurgents" causing so much havoc to American troops today. The attitude of the British Redcoats, particularly the officer class, is a carbon copy of the condescending arrogance mouthed by the "official" United States military that wishfully proclaims the rebellion to be in its "death throes", the rebellion's leadership "in desperation", and the rebels' caused to be futile and evil.

I've only skimmed forward through about half of 1776 beyond the first hundred pages that I've read, but it somehow feels eerily likely that the remnants of the U.S. military forces currently bogged down in Iraq will find themselves begging some third Arab or other regional Islamic country (Iran? Pakistan?) for guarantee of safe passage out of Iraq in much the same way that Lord Cornwallis descreetly begged the French for a guarantee of safe passage for the withdrawal of what remained of his Redcoat army from the Yorktown Peninsula.

I don't think McCullough even remotely envisioned or intended his work to serve as a libertarian historical allegory on just warfare or the morality and efficacy of Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW), but that may be what the astute reader will take away from it. At any rate, I just thought I'd let everyone know that even while I'm on vacation my tiny mind isn't completely idle (or any more so than normal in the eyes of my detractors). It's approaching 1:00 AM EDT (though only 10:00 PM PDT here), and since my body clock is still on East Coast time, I'm off to bed (prefaced be a little reading of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, a Christmas gift seven years ago to my mother, who swore for years that she's wanted to read it but hasn't done so yet). I'll keep everyone posted on the continuing adventures as they unfold.


Cheers, and pleasant dreams!

BREAKING FOR VACATION

Sorry you haven't heard from me for a couple of weeks. I'm currently on a week's vacation at my parents' home in the Silicon Valley, California. All I can say is that while I'm overjoyed to be with them after four years apart, I'm living in Neocon Propoganda Hell! It's Hannity, Limbaugh, Savage, and other local hatemongers 24/7 on the radio here. Needless to say, I'm making extra efforts to avoid political conversation at all costs, just to keep the peace. I'll be back home next week and will regale you with anything that may be of libertarian interest.

Remember me!

Thanks in Advance

The LNC is Broken

For anyone who has not done so, I urge you to read Lew Rockwell’s article posted on LRC today regarding “statist” libertarians. Lew correctly states that the Libertarian National Committee, the national wing of the organized Libertarian Party, has taken a horrifyingly pragmatic and statist stance on issues for quit some time, most recently in its proposed exit strategy for Iraq. While I had glanced at this on a recent cursory visit to the Libertarian Party’s official website, I had not taken the time to read it in detail. Lew sums it up perfectly as a complete betrayal of genuine libertarian principles by "libertarian leaders" who have simply been “inside the [Washington, D.C.] beltway" for far too long. I believe that this is one of the primary reasons why the national LP has lost so many members (yours truly included) over the last five years. The LP as an institution has shown that it is fundamentally incapable of remaining an organization dedicated to the exercise of true libertarian principles and is also hopelessly inept at getting the libertarian message out to the American people (indeed, Steve Dasbach, the LNC’s former spokesperson and national committee chairman, actually once said something to the effect that since organizations such as the Cato Institute exist solely for the purpose of expressing libertarian philosophy and policy, it’s not the LNC’s job to “spread the word”).

Rather than be part of an organization that seems uninterested in doing anything but singing self-congratulating slogans with members of the choir, I turned in my LP card nearly five years ago, writing the LNC a long letter explaining why (a letter which, incidentally, never drew a response, which I considered strange for an organization allegedly begging for members). I’ve come since then to the conclusion that organized political parties such as the Libertarians are not what will ultimately restore liberty to the United States; indeed, the LNC will probably be marginalized or co-opted before it does anything of even remote significance that registers on the national radar screen.

Rather, we should all do what we can as individuals to “evangelize” (for lack of a better term) the blessings of liberty and the free market to as wide an audience as possible. Only when sufficient numbers of Americans realize the swindle that has been perpetrated on them over the last century and a half will enough of them get sufficiently angry to take action. For this they will not need a political party that has compromised its ideals. With that thought in mind, I would urge everyone to do what I’m about to do: get “evangelical” with as many of those around you as possible. That will accomplish more than any political campaign and will show better than anything else how much the individual can accomplish.

A Blast from the Past

It must have been an accident on someone's part, but I actually received in the mailbox yesterday a postcard from the Republican National Committee reminding me to contribute to those few state and local campaigns taking place in preparation for this November's election day. I really would have thought that both the local and national Republican committees would have wasted no time dropping me from their rolls after the nastigram I sent them last Summer. For those of you who are on the receiving end of a constant stream of political solicitation mail, I'll reprint here my response to the RNC (and local party affiliate's) beg-athon. Although this was aimed at the GOP, it could just as easily be used as a template for a letter to any other organization of which you've never been a member and whose philosophy you take issue with, but that continues to annoy you by soliciting. I would have shared this last Summer, had this blog then existed, but since it didn't, here it is, for everyone's enjoyment (by the way, I never got a response back):

ATTN: Ms. Patty Luther and Mr. Mike Retzer
Republican National Committee
310 First Street, S.E.
Washington, D.C. 20003


Dear Patty and Mike:

I found your solicitations for alms mixed in with the other detritus in my mailbox this week and thought I'd take a few moments of my precious and rare free time to drop one you a note. Really guys, you should have checked with each other before duplicating efforts. In all honesty I don't know whether to feel honored or insulted that the Republican faction of the Government Party has seen fit to solicit a donation from me. I suppose my real response should be one of bewilderment, since anyone who knows me at all is well aware that the Republican Party, in its current mutation, is the last organization I would turn to for a solution to the problems plaguing this once-great Republic. With that dour sentiment expressed, allow me a few minutes to explain, taking your solicitations one paragraph at a time. In the interests of chivalry (who said it's dead?), I'll start with Patty's letter.

In the second paragraph of your solicitation letter, Patty, you inform me that my "friends and neighbors" in this part of southwestern Fairfax County are making their annual contribution to the RNC to "show their support for President George W. Bush's vision for America." Just what "vision" might that be? Finalizing the destruction of the Constitution, initiated during Abraham Lincoln's tenure in office and underway ever since? Creation of the most massive budget deficit in modern history, one that would make Lyndon Johnson green with envy and vindicate John Maynard Keynes? Waging of total global warfare with depleted and exhausted military forces, resulting hundreds of thousands of needless American deaths around the world, emptying of the national treasury, humiliating defeats that will make that of Vietnam look like a minor misstep, and the unprecedented enmity of every civilized (and non-civilized) nation on earth? If that is Mr. Bush's vision (and current events seem to support this assumption), then I dare say that I would prefer eternal blindness.

You state in the next paragraph that "Mr. Bush can't do it alone." This true to the extent that he, like every other figurehead to occupy the oval office in the last century and a half, can do nothing without the permission and direction of his corporate puppeteers. But to claim that he needs our (?) support really strains credibility. If Mr. Bush can wage a war of conquest in Iraq while thumbing his nose at both the United States Constitution (what happened to a congressional declaration of war?) and the rest of the world (who needs Europe and the U.N.?), why should we assume that he would need the support of his own citizenry at home? Indeed, when was the last time any administration "needed" the support of the people to advance its agenda? As one example, the current president's papa campaigned on a platform of "no new taxes" (remember that?), a pledge which he quickly broke once in power and execution of which he accomplished without the support of the people. As I recall, he paid for it dearly.

In paragraph four you mention the need to "retain the White House" and "increase [y]our slim majority" in congress [small "c"]. Given the record of the Republican congress, why on earth do you need a majority? Indeed, it's difficult for us ign'nt unwashed masses to see any difference between the two parties in terms of their legislative behavior. Both seem to be locked in a competition to spend my money at the most reckless and irresponsible pace possible, so why should it matter whether my wallet is drained in four years or eight, if the end result in any case is national bankruptcy? Let's hope you can find better justification for yourselves than that, but I'm not holding my breath.

Paragraph five had me clutching my sides, aching from rib-cracking guffaws, and requiring a quick change of trousers. You guys really should audition for Comedy Central. I particularly liked the statement about Democrats and their "big-government, tax-and-spend programs." This from an administration that 1) created a whole new federal bureaucracy, the Department of Hopeless Stupidity, that not only stood by helplessly as a lone tobacco farmer on a tractor paralyzed the nation's capitol for an afternoon, but has yet to prove that it can do anything other than use colors in new and original ways and find creative new uses for duct tape; 2) decreed, in so many words, that while providing subsidized medicine for all Americans amounts to socialism (true enough), providing subsidized medicine for senior citizens, who just happen to be the largest and most decisive voting block in the country, amounts to "compassionate conservatism" (whatever the hell that means); and 3) turned a 400 billion dollar surplus under a "tax and spend" Democrat named Clinton into a 900 billion-dollar deficit in just one year. Alright, maybe you can call them "bigger-government Democrats", but to be fair and accurate in the interests of full disclosure, you really should refer to yourselves as "big-government Republicans."

In paragraph six you berate big labor, the Democrats, and the United Nations for their vision of a "socialist/welfare state" and for fear that the U.N. will "decide what's in our national interest." Since you're well aware that there has been no contraction of the "socialist/welfare state" under Dubya (indeed, it's expanded with the addition of the prescription drug debacle, new funding for Department of Education programs like Head Start, and other spendaholic boondoggles), I can only assume that some petty jealousy exists due to the fact that the Democrats are more adept at spending than you are and that you wish you could catch up. Don't worry. With your plans to conquer the world and provide cradle-to-grave democracy for all of the world's citizens whether they want it or not, you'll catch up in no time. As for having the U.N. "decide what is in our national interest", what's the problem? Israel has been the arbiter of our national interest for at least the last four years (probably much longer than that, to be honest), with predictably disastrous results to our national security; could the U.N. really be any worse? I mean, it's not as if the great masses of unwashed average Americans who put America's best interests first would be allowed have anything to do with determining our "national interest", so why are you worried?

Finally, you talk about "grassroots" leaders. Since when does any party in power need "grassroots" leadership when it has a lock on the machinery of state? If anything, I have to believe that any "grassroots" movements have been purged like weeds from a vegetable garden since anything "grassroots" smacks of populist influence, new ideas, and demands by those great unwashed masses for more accountability and greater control over government. God knows the GOP doesn't want that. It might mean that you'd actually have to start living up to the ideals of President Number 40, whom you just eulogized to death so loudly just a few weeks ago.

While Patty's letter at least carried a whiff of professional sincerity, yours, Mike, reeked of feigned desperation unmatched by anything since the "apology" Bill Clinton made two weeks ago on 60 Minutes in describing his dalliance with Monica. Let's take a brief look at your statements, by paragraph.

In response to paragraph one: No, Mike, I have not abandoned the GOP; it has abandoned me. It has also abandoned tens of millions of other Americans who still believe in what the party once professed to stand for - limited government, lower taxes, and free trade (among other things), but to which it barely even pays lip service anymore, much less fights to achieve. Have I given up? Yes. I've come to my senses and realized, as I pointed out in my response to Patty's letter, that there is not and never can be any real, substantive difference between you and the Democrats. In fact, let's just do away with silly partisan labels altogether and simply refer to both of you as "The Party." Orwellian, I know, but accurate nonetheless. Both of you believe in continuing the expansion of the federal government, the only difference being in size, speed, and scale of the expansion, beyond anything even remotely resembling its Constitutional role; both of you believe that the federal government, not me, should control how much of my money I can keep, and neither of you believes in the free market economy or free trade. At least the Democratic faction of the Party is honest and open about their position on the last issue.

But you know all of this. What I really want to point out is just how clueless you and your corporate-sponsored, military-industrial-complex-managing pals at the RNC really are about who your friends are. You state in your letter that you "haven't heard from [me] this year. . ." and that you "know how generously [I] have supported the RNC in the past." Well, Mike, here's a news flash for you: I haven't "generously supported" the GOP since the first Reagan administration and haven't been a registered member of any political party for nearly five years. I can only guess that this helps explain why your beloved president and the gang of morons in his cabinet have such a problem with Iraqi WMD issue. If they researched that as thoroughly as you morons reviewed your campaign contributions lists, it's no wonder you came up empty-handed in the evidence category. I'll say this, though: You're nothing if not consistent and it certainly is hilarious. Now let's move on to the rest of your letter.

Your groveling and begging does not become you. In fact, it proves to me that you know that Bush doesn't deserve my or anyone else's support. It shows that you are well aware that he has failed the American people with his mishandling of the Mess in Potamia, his utter lack of direction in the Warren Terra, and his demonstrable ignorance and neglect of economics in general and domestic issues in particular. You know that John Kerry, for all of his egregious faults --lack of anything resembling a platform being the least of them-- stands an excellent chance of (ahem!) kicking your collective arses. I'm not gloating at this prospect; in fact, the specter of a Kerry victory is just as sickening as the specter of four more years of Dubya, but that's a whole other letter.

You speak of the "lessons learned from the 2000 presidential and 2002 mid-term elections." Well, the lesson I think we all learned best from that debacle is that some people, who happen to be heavily concentrated on the east coast of Florida, are simply too stupid to be allowed to vote. Other than that it was as rancid an affair as any other of its kind in the twentieth century, characterized by a non-choice between two empty suits without an original idea between them and a devotion to maintaining the status quo. As for the 2002 mid-term elections, you guys actually lost several seats, and deservedly so. You might want to ask one of your alumni, former congressman Bob Dornan, whether letting hoards of illegal aliens register to vote is a good idea. It was a problem in the mid 1990's, but thanks to your Open Borders patrons, who serve as your corporate sponsors' cheap-labormongers and to whom you kowtow without thought, the problem is now worse than ever. Surprised that illegal aliens don't vote GOP? You shouldn't be now. As for one person having "a profound difference" on the outcome of an election, I think it's more accurate to heed the words of the statistician who theorized that you stand a better chance of dying in an accident on your way to the polls than of having your vote make any difference to the outcome of an election. I'm beginning to think that with the Party and its candidates as the only alternative, dying may not be such a misfortune.

You state that you've "made progress" on implementing "a part" of the president's agenda on "cutting taxes, strengthening homeland and national defense (what, pray tell, is the difference between "homeland" and "national" defense?), and improving education." The last item is not even within the purview of the federal government at all, so I won't concern myself with it. Let's look at the other points you claim the administration has "made progress" on.

Your "cutting taxes" claim is purely bogus. Let's take the estate tax as just one example. While you rammed through a gradual reduction of this tax through the year 2010, the tax elimination runs out that same year and the tax will be reinstated, unless new congressional resolutions make the repeal permanent. I'm not willing to bet money on that happening, since you spendaholics will need more revenue than ever by the end of the decade to finance your international misadventures and ill-conceived domestic boondoggles. Just be honest with me. What, pray tell, was the point of "temporarily" eliminating a tax, only to have it reappear? That's not a "tax cut"; it's a temporary tax "deferment." God help us if this is your idea of tax cuts. The reality is that the only "tax cut" that will be meaningful across the board for all Americans is the elimination of the graduated income tax and replacing it either with a national sales tax, not to exceed five percent, or a flat tax not exceeding 15 percent of gross income. But you know this too and are not about to let it happen because you, like the Democratic faction of the party, realize that the power to tax is the ultimate power to rule. Like the alcoholic who cannot bring himself to stay away from the liquor store, you cannot bear the thought of cutting off the source of your excessive spending.

Your claims of having strengthened defense are so ridiculous as to not merit a response at all. However, I will challenge you to do this: Prove to me, in detail, how homeland defense is even remotely possible while the nation's borders remain a gaping hole. Prove to me how homeland security is possible when the bulk of the nation's armed forces are deployed 6,000 miles across the globe to a country not even a threat to the nation's security. Prove to me how maintaining a global empire in over 100 countries around the world while leaving the country's own borders virtually unguarded is "strengthening defense." Enough said.

Well, I've wasted enough ink and keystrokes on this already, but thank you for providing me with an opportunity to vent. I feel much better now about my decision to support a "No More in 2004" campaign, the goal being to get as many Americans with functioning brain stems as possible to simply stay home on the first Tuesday in November. It's far past time that the nation stops lending legitimacy to the farce known as presidential elections.

Oh, and one more thing, guys: stop invoking the name of Ronald Reagan! Flawed as the man was, you clowns aren't fit to wipe dirt from his grave. Thank God, for Reagan's own sake, that he suffered from Alzheimer's disease in his final years. I'm sure if he had been lucid, he would have been heartbroken to witness the final destruction of the party he (briefly) brought back to power and (a modicum of) respectability and would have been more vociferous than I've been in criticizing what you and the other neoconservatives have done to destroy it. In fact, it's nothing short of perverse to see lip service paid to his achievements by the very people who have besmirched his legacy. As the late Morton Downey, Jr. liked to say, "Just zip it!"

So, in closing, I hope you don't feel offended by my response. Your letter, Mike, specifically requested "comments and suggestions", so I'm only too happy to comply. Just to demonstrate that there are no hard feelings and as a testament to how much better I feel having written this letter, I'm not only using my own postage to mail this, but am returning the postage-paid envelopes for you and Patty to reuse in your quest to bilk some other clueless working-class lemming of his hard-earned cash. Unlike the GOP, I don’t believe in spending other people’s money frivolously. So cheer up, and remember the lesson you've learned - check the voter rolls for party affiliation carefully before you spend precious money on postage and find yourself groveling and begging in vain. Good luck on the first Tuesday in November; with "Fahrenheit 9/11" as the top-grossing movie this summer, you're going to need all of it that you can beg, buy, or steal (no pun intended).

Sincerely,

[Liberranter]

Well, the last sentence certainly turned out not to have been an omen, but like I said: I felt a heck of a lot better after writing this. Let's see if the RNC's memory is any longer than that of the general public and hope I don't get anymore solicitations like the one that prompted this rant.

Celebrating the Fourth: Why Bother?

Most of us are by now doing something to commemorate America’s 229^th birthday. We may be barbecuing (or, more accurately, “grilling”), attending family gatherings, taking a vacation, or lighting off pyrotechnics. Some of us, however, are undergoing an apathetic sense of mourning of the sort experienced by someone watching a beloved relative die slowly of a debilitating disease. The patient in this case is the United States of America, and on this 229^th anniversary of the founding of an ostensibly “free” nation, the birthday girl reminds one of the great aunt in the nursing home who is celebrating her centennial, but is too sick and senile to realize it. Like the great aunt who is in a geriatric state of vegetation and deserves to be euthanized, America at two and a quarter centuries is in a terminal stage that calls for anything but celebration.

Harry Browne said it best: it’s time to “uncelebrate the Fourth.” While one hopes for a turnaround and restoration of the principles on which this once-great nation was founded, to continue to “celebrate” America, particularly in the style and custom advocated by the minions of the State and endorsed by the wild-eyed, brainless (and brainwashed) masses, is just too much for the thinking, freedom-loving person to abide. Better to save the celebrations for the day when liberty again reigns supreme. Meanwhile, fly the flag at half-mast, preferably upside down. It’s possible that this will catch some peoples’ attention and may even offend them enough to prompt serious discussions of why the whole celebration of the Fourth has become an exercise in pointlessness. More likely, however, no one will even notice that you’re flying a flag at all, let alone in a politically incorrect manner.

So, for those of you with more optimism in your souls than I have in mine, enjoy this Fourth of July. Celebrate the good things left in this land, such as the fact that there are still some of us out there who know what this country is really supposed to be all about and what the real reasons are for celebrating. In the meantime, I'll pass.

Cheers!

The Supreme Court, the Constitution, and the Rights of the Individual

It is not an exercise in hyperbole to refer to the Supreme Court as a dysfunctional wreck. Anyone of libertarian bent no doubt agrees with this given the court’s blatant tendency, especially over the last four or five decades, to decide cases by fiat of opinion rather than on a substantive interpretation of the Constitution. The controversial decision last week in the case of Kelo vs. New London , in which the high court upheld the taking by the city of New London, Connecticut of residential property through eminent domain for the purpose of reselling said property to a commercial developer, is just the latest example of the majority’s preference for preserving the tyranny of the State and its corporate enablers at the expense of the rights of the individual citizen.

While I originally had intended to join the chorus of justifiable outrage and thoroughly blast this decision, I have decided, upon careful reflection, that I am of basically two minds on the subject of the high court and its decisions. On the one hand, I submit that the decision rendered in Kelo represents the apex of misconduct and that any justice who shows such open contempt for the principles behind the document they have taken an oath to uphold deserves impeachment and removal from the bench. On the other hand, I believe that perhaps the majority’s interpretation of the Constitution (or at the very least, the framers’ intent) may be absolutely correct and that the Constitution is less of a check on the State’s power than a guideline for allocating it, often at the expense of the rights of the individual.

Using incredibly murky legal logic, the five-justice majority opined in Kelo to the effect that it is the right of each state and local government to determine whether or not property takings under eminent domain intended for transfer to private (i.e., non-governmental) parties are legitimately for “public” use and thus constitutionally sound. For anyone wishing to read it, the full text of the majority’s opinion in Kelo is available here. It is also very telling that the majority made the specious claim that government has an inherent stake in fostering the economic well-being of the community (apparently someone forgot to mention this to the framers of the Constitution), and that this is best done at government’s lowest levels where the most impact can be felt (for better or worse, no doubt).

On the other hand, this opinion seems to clearly contradict those rendered in Granholm vs. Heald, one of three cases challenging states’ practice of banning their citizens from making direct retail purchases of wine from out-of-state producers. Here the majority ruled that the state ban constituted illegal restraint of trade under the terms of the much-abused interstate commerce clause. For some reason the justices did not believe in this case that the states had the best interests of their citizens in mind by regulating from whom they could or could not purchase fortified fruit beverages at the best price the market would bear. One strains to see consistency in such a ruling when juxtaposed with similar past rulings on interstate commerce.

While libertarians most certainly should applaud the merits of the decision reached in Granholm with the same fervor with which they should denounce those of the decision reached in Kelo, the issue of the court’s conduct is a subject warranting far more complex and careful discussion. Stephen Kinsella argues, for example, that libertarians should take issue with Kelo not because of the decision rendered, but because the high court had no business hearing it in the first place, let alone rendering a decision. Libertarians, he says, cannot have it both ways where the Supreme Court is concerned; that is, we cannot cheer the court when it renders a verdict we approve of in a particular case if in rendering said verdict the court oversteps its Constitutional authority. In this case, Kinsella argues, it is disingenuous of libertarians to take issue with the majority’s deference to the state courts when that is what we constantly preach should be the norm anyway. While I do not entirely agree with Kinsella’s reasoning (he also makes his point in a rather combative and condescending manner that demonstrates why lawyers enjoy a popularity rating on a par with that of child molesters and IRS employees), he is correct in stating that if we are to remain philosophically credible, we must remain consistent. Lew Rockwell makes a similar argument in the case of Granholm and its relatives. The point is that two wrongs do not make a right and that if the court exceeds the boundaries of its jurisdiction by rendering a decision on something that is by its own admission not a matter of federal jurisdiction at all, it cannot credibly render judgment on anything without calling its judicial integrity into question.

One might say of any of the decisions in question (as I would), “But the verdict is still just ( or unjust) despite the legal logic behind it.” In response to this I would restate what many libertarians (most prominently Murray Rothbard) have stated, which is that the United States Constitution, while most definitely the greatest document of its kind ever produced, is still a deeply flawed document and that the intentions of the Founding Fathers were less libertarian than we like to assume. They were, after all, setting up the framework for a government, a state, with all of that institution’s inherent evils, no matter how lofty and benevolent their intentions. No state, after all, can survive as all-powerful if it defers to the individuals under its rule.

This is perhaps what we should bear in mind when we analyze any Supreme Court decision or any newly enacted law; the State is acting in its own best interest, which considers the rights of the individual only to the extent that they do not interfere with the goals of the State itself. As Kinsella points out, the Kelo decision illustrates this perfectly. While the legal reasoning of the majority in deciding to defer eminent domain decisions to the state and local governments is laudable from the perspective of anyone who adheres to the doctrine of federalism, the resulting decision –upholding the right of the State (i.e., government at any level) to confiscate property against the will of its rightful owner-- is a travesty that has no place in what any of us would envision as a “free” society. In other words, the mechanisms of the State, no matter how well they might work for good under most circumstances, are still a highly destructive mechanism when seen as an integrated whole. As the old expression goes, “what the government can give, the government can take away” (the flawed notion of government “giving” rights notwithstanding).

To sum it up, look at anything the Supreme Court says with extreme skepticism, just as you would look at any other organ of any level of the State. Better yet, ignore or resist any decision it makes that is not consistent with the principles of liberty. Our goal as libertarians is to strive for a society in which the State plays as non-existent a role as possible and in which voluntary associations of individuals work together to ensure the preservation of all of the individual’s rights, including those of private property. Our nation’s founders, while certainly taking things a giant step in the right direction, clearly did not go far enough in safeguarding the rights of the individual over those of the State. The United States Supreme Court, as an organ of the imperfect State they founded, is clearly not going to undertake the necessary defense of the individual so vital to any free society. To entrust them with doing so is both foolish and pointless.