McFreedom

Phillipe DeCroy, over at the Volokh Conspiracy, wonders why people think libertarians are identified with Republicans. I'm a basically libertarian fellow who votes Republican, so I thought perhaps I could illuminate a bit. Or at least ramble on-topic.

Why not the Libertarian Party? My most basic complaint with the LP is tactical: I am skeptical that the current Libertarian Party could win an unopposed election. Beyond that, however, I am not a "hard" libertarian. I believe that, on balance, "that government is best which governs least," but I'm willing to live with a small amount of intrusion into the private sphere in order to make all of our lives easier. I believe that, when you get bogged down in your debates on whether or not local roads (or schools!) should be paid for with taxes, you end up not talking about the really important questions. I'm especially willing to use the system our founding fathers established to let various states and municipalities experiment with ludicrous, unfree ideas as long as they are at relatively local levels. The LP is a lot more concerned with ideological purity than with making things better now. In addition, cementing my break in the past year, I disagree violently with the LP's stance on the war.

So, having left the fold, I examined the alternatives. While I'm not necessarily opposed to voting for some other third party, I'm not aware of any of them that are even remotely near me, ideologically. It is difficult for me to imagine a party I'd have less in common with than Greens. The Natural Law party are a bunch of kooks. As I stated recently, I know of no sizeable third party which supports invading Iraq.

Why not the Democratic Party? Other than the obvious one of the war, there is very little I agree with the Democrats on that they do not also agree with the Republicans on. Abortion rights would top that list. Clear separation of Church and State. The "New Democrats" have a group of issues I agree with them on, but they generally agree with the Republicans on them, too. But on the opposite side, I believe in lowering taxes (especially for the "rich," since I'd like to be rich, someday) and am a "supply-sider;" less government regulation and interference in almost every realm (especially from the Federal government); a strong position on the Middle East; and strong Second Amendment rights. I'm generally opposed to any sort of "progressive" or redistributionist approach to social problems.

Why not the Republican Party? Don't get the idea there aren't a lot of Republican Party planks I disagree with, because there are. I think their current standing on Abortion is ridiculous, and I think their current stand on therapeutic cloning is criminal - if they succeed, hundreds of thousands of Americans will die, needlessly. To the extent that they want to shove their morality down my throat - be it in my bedroom or in having my son pray in school - I disagree violently.

So, if I disagree with them on so much, why do I still vote for them? First, Republicans are the only party who agree with me on my two most important issues: The Second Amendment and the war on terrorism. Second, tactically, Republicans' bad ideas lose in court.. Stuff like the Communications Decency Act; abortion rights restrictions; blurring the line between Church and State - all of that gets shot down in the courts. The Republicans' bad ideas get overturned, while the Democrats keep shambling along long after they've been proven not to work.

Some other libertarians, no doubt, feel differently. My wife is less libertarian than I am, but feels as strongly about abortion rights as I do about gun rights; had she ever been a card-carrying Libertarian, she certainly could've broken ranks in the direction of the Democrats.

Am I perfectly happy voting Republican? No. But I've decided that the Republicans are more likely to become libertarian than the Libertarians are likely to become successful.

So, it turns out, in the "full, complete and accurate" report on Weapons of Mass Destruction from Iraq, they didn't include details about weapons they acknowledged to inspectors in 1998: "When weapons inspectors left Iraq in 1998, those acknowledged [nuclear] weapons had not been documented as destroyed," CNN says, and also says that they aren't in the current accounting.

Ma! Get my gun! I think we got ourselves a material breach right here!

I didn't notice this until it was pointed out to me a while back, but misuse of "myself" has been growing dramatically. It appears people, when faced with a decision to use "I" or "me" in a sentence ("Bob and myself went to the store") have been substituting "myself" for the questionable pronoun. "Myself," is, of course, almost always wrong, but sounds more sophisticated. Personally, I think it's part of a greater trend I've noticed of substituting, larger, grander-seeming things for simpler, more correct things, which I call being pretentiously wrong.

Worse, of course, is that "myself" begins to creep, inevitably, into places where is no real question about the pronoun to use. Yesterday, I heard it shift even further, as a woman I was speaking to on the telephone said, "I'll get that right out to yourself." What? So much for all those theories of grammar that hold that things get simpler.

For the record, I'm not a prescriptivist. But I do believe that one should make an effort to speak in the way that people perceived as educated speak, and that's what I try to teach my children. No doubt, some would consider this to be pretentious. But it's pretentiously right.

Eugene Volokh wonders what John Lennon meant when he wrote the song, "Happiness is a Warm Gun." He then prints reader speculation it's drug related. As is often the case, there is less here than meets the eye (or ear). I was a big Beatles fan in my younger days and recalls reading that he'd seen the title on an American gun magazine and thought it was sick, and wrote the song in a critical mind about America's gun culture. Here's what he had to say about it:

George Martin had a book on guns which he had told me about - I can't remember - or I think he showed me a cover of a magazine that said "Happiness Is A Warm Gun". It was a gun magazine, that's it: I read it, thought it was a fantastic, insane thing to say. A warm gun means that you just shot something.

He went on to dispel the heroin story, in 1972, "Thay [sic] all said it was about drugs, but it was more about rock 'n roll than drugs. It's sort of a history of rock 'n roll... I don't know why people said it was about the needle in heroin. I've only seen somebody do something with a needle once, and I don't like to see it at all." Finally, in 1980, he expanded on the original idea, "A gun magazine was sitting around and the cover was the picture of a smoking gun. The title of the article, which I never read, was 'Happiness Is a Warm Gun.' I took it right from there. I took it as the idea of happiness after having shot somebody. Or some animal."

All quotes are unsourced, and from The Internet Beatles Recording Index but I've definitely read the first quote in reputable sources in the past.

Yahoo! has an AP story about Bethany Oklahoma's attempts to get shoppers to stay in town. The problem, of course, is sales tax revenue. Neighboring Oklahoma City and Warr Acres get $455 and $300 per capita annually in sales tax, while poor Bethany only gets $185.

The city leaders figured the problem was that loyal Bethany residents didn't know exactly where the town boundaries were, and were inadvertently shopping in nearby towns by accident. So, they painted a blue line around the city.

After going on for about half the story about blue lines, and the program, etc., they mention, as an aside:

Bethany's city sales tax is 4 percent, compared with 2.5 percent in Warr Acres.

While they don't mention Oklahoma City's tax rates, if the tax rate in Bethany is 63% higher than in Warr Acres, I can bet you the residents of Bethany don't need a blue line. They already know where the lower taxes are. Warr Acres, for its part, has posted signs on their side of the line that say, "Warning: Higher Taxes Ahead." At least somebody gets it.

Steven Den Beste complains that a liberal ain't what it used to be: At the founding of our Great Republic, a liberal was one who wanted a small, nonintrusive state, but, today, a liberal is one who wishes to have a large, intrusive state.

I was reminded of a conversation I had with my mother as the Eastern Bloc was turning into a bunch of Eastern Pieces. She'd complained about some article which had spoke of "conservative communists," battling democratic reform and had felt that the word "conservative" inherently meant not communist and that the article was guilty of imprecise language at best or was evidence of some leftist plot to discredit Republicans at worst.

The problem, of course, is that conservative and liberal are relative terms. Dictionary.com says a conservative is one "tending to oppose change," while a liberal is someone who is "[f]avoring proposals for reform." The trick is that, in this country, at some point the labels "stuck," and they now are shorthand for "rightist" and "leftist," respectively. Even in cases where the "liberals" want the status quo and "conservatives" want radical change (say, The Endangered Species Act).

Gene and I went ammo shopping yesterday, and on the way to the gun store we walked past an antique store, which had a sign in the window advertising "50s Modern." Which is a similar case of a term getting frozen - when someone says that a building looks "modern," is he saying that it looks like it was built two years ago, or forty? People could honestly describe both Barbara Boxer and me as "liberal," but if there's a single policy element we both agree on, I've never heard of it.

In short, if you wish to be precise, eschew "liberal" or "conservative" as general labels. I don't have a good set of alternative labels to propose; there are five main separations of mainstream political thought (leftist-authoritarian; leftist-libertarian; rightist-authoritarian; rightist-libertarian and populism). Unfortunately, only the last one has a widely deployed pithy name.

Professor Volokh's recent comments about the intelligence of Jews reminded me of an exchange I once had with a bulletin board poster who was pontificating about the Worldwide Jewish Conspiracy: "You say that the Jews control the world economy and world media, but no one has noticed this. I don't see how this could be possible...I mean, unless they were genetically superior in some way..."

Funny, he never responded.

I was speaking to my wife, today, about what the recent 9th circuit decision that there isn't an individual right to gun ownership means. As I speculated, before, I'm optimistic that this case will be appealed to the Supreme Court, and that they, given the clear conflict between the 9th and 5th circuits on this matter, will finally settle the question of whether Americans have an individual right to own guns. But that started me thinking about what happens after that...

If they decide Americans do not have an individual right to gun ownership (which I consider unlikely), I think the long-term results are far from clear. The implication from such a ruling would be that there is no constitutional prohibition to laws banning weaponry, but it doesn't necessarily follow that guns should instantly be banned. Interestingly, I don't see how the current Federal restrictions on gun manufacture and importation can stand up to any Supreme Court review. Either the constitution establishes an individual right to own guns (and one would presume that banning manufacture and importation would be interpreted as a back-door way of accomplishing an ownership ban), or the constitution does not guarantee an individual right, but rather establishes a state right to regulate weapons. As Glenn Reynolds has pointed out, any freedom-minded state could then declare every adult member of its populace members of the militia and be able to set as unrestrictive gun laws as it wants. In any event, I believe the 1986 Federal bans on machine guns and the more recent bans on "assault rifles" and large-capacity magazines will eventually be struck down as unconstitutional, because either we have the right to own them, or the states have the right to decide if we can own them, but I can't see any reasonable interpretation that says that the Federal government gets to say we can't own them.

With the Feds out of the picture, I'd imagine that lobbying moves to the statehouses, with the possible exception of some attempt to get a Federal constitutional amendment that would establish an individual right to bear arms. The outcome of that fight my crystal ball is far too cloudy to see. Ironically, I don't see guns getting much more regulated in California as a result - they've already been acting as though the Second Amendment didn't grant an individual right, and I believe they've regulated as much as they can, politically, at this time.

If the Supreme Court decides that the Second Amendment does, in fact, confer an individual right to gun ownership, it raises some very interesting questions:

1. Does this decision restrict the states, too? Specifically, will the Court also decide that the Fourteenth Amendment causes the Second Amendment to restrict what states can do? The 9th, in their recent decision essentially dodged this question (in footnote 17, on pages 23-24). They point out that previously they hand found that "[T]he Second Amendment is not incorporated by the Fourteenth and does not constrain actions by the state," but now admit that the caselaw that was the basis for for deciding that is now "thoroughly discredited." In the end, they sidestep it with, "Because we decide this case on the threshold issue of standing, however, we need not consider the question whether the Second Amendment presently enjoins any action on the part of the states." In the 9th's interpretation, asking whether the Second is incorporated by the Fourteenth is meaningless, anyway; if the point of the Second is to grant a right to the state, how could the Fourteenth then bind the state to the terms of the Second Amendment? The question of whether the Second restricts states is only meaningful if the Second is an individual right. If the case the Supreme Court hears is the recent one 9th Circuit opinion, they could decide this question, as well. I'd bet that they won't, though - they usually only address the specific question in front of them, and in this case, it's going to be, "do these appellants have standing under the Second Amendment?" If they decide, "yes," they'll send it back down to the 9th, who will then opine, "Yeah, well, maybe they do, but the Fourteenth doesn't cause the Second to apply to the states, anyhow," it'll go to the Supreme Court again, which is when this question will really be answered. Of course, for non-Californians, the answer to the Federal question ("Does the Second Amendment provide a Federal individual right to own arms?") would be interesting, but here in California, the state gun laws are considerably more restrictive than the Federal, so the really interesting question is going to be whether the Second applies to California, as well. I'd be surprised if we have that question answered before about 2007, barring the Supreme Court weighing in unasked in this case or the 9th actually coming up with a rational opinion on the remand. I'd love to hear what a real court watcher had to say about that, though.

2. What arms may "the people" bear, exactly? The rationale in Miller implies that it should be "part of the ordinary military equipment or that [their] use could contribute to the common defense" (although it's couched in terms of a negative, so it's possible that weapons could meet this test and yet still not be considered to be protected by the Second Amendment). Assuming that this is the class of weapons we're dealing with, what lines may be drawn? The military currently uses 9mm pistols with large magazines; .50 caliber sniper rifles; .223 caliber fully automatic "assault rifles;" .308 caliber machine guns, grenades, rocket-propelled grenades, stinger anti-aircraft missiles, tanks, aircraft carriers... Private ownership of most of these weapons is currently illegal to in some or all of the United States. Is there a line that may be drawn, or may any individual put together firepower far overwhelming that of the local constabulary? If there is a line, what's the rationale? I could certainly see an argument for restricting weapons too large to "bear," but, let's face it, a suitcase nuke could conceivably be hauled about by a single individual, and I don't think anyone would advocate making those legal for the average person, background check or no. Even if you limit it to what I think makes the most sense, "weapons commonly issued to US soldiers," you've still got machine guns, grenades and potentially RPGs and things like an M203 coming into private ownership, which I think most people would be opposed to, and is certainly a dramatic and sudden change from the status quo. If it is "weapons commonly issued to US soldiers," is there any sort of equivalency? Is a literal M16 legal to manufacture, import and own, but a semi-automatic SKS may be outlawed because US soldiers don't use that literal weapon? What about changes in technology; if the Army drops the M16 in favor of the next generation OICW, does that mean that Congress can then outlaw the M16? That could put us in a world where the US could effectively disarm its populace simply by making its standard-issue infantry weaponry too expensive for most individuals to own and then outlawing everything else. I'm guessing, but in a totally unregulated world, I'd be surprised if an M16 cost as much as $2,000. The current projected price tag for an OICW is between $10,000 and $12,000 - not an amount your average "militia member" is probably going to be willing to spend.

3. What about related restrictions? Is the Brady Law constitutional in the world of an individual-rights Second Amendment? I suspect it is (many constitutional rights are abridged for certain classes of citizens), but I also suspect we'll need a court case to find out for sure. I believe there are already rulings that restrictive concealed-carry laws are not a violation of gun-ownership rights, but what about significant restrictions in transporting weapons unconcealed (as we have in California)? They would seem to significantly curtail my ability to "bear" arms; if the Second also constrains the states via the Fourteenth, might they also be unconstitutional? May any government enact "backdoor" restrictions that, while not eliminating gun ownership, make the acquisition, transportation, manufacture and transfer of guns effectively impossible? What about ammunition sales restrictions or prohibitive taxes? For that matter, are local governmental crusades against shooting ranges unconstitutional, since clearly the intent is to have a populace trained in the art of arms, and you may not train in the art of arms without actually practicing occasionally?

Even should the Supreme Court decide we have an individual right to own arms, I think that's only the beginning of finding out what gun ownership will be like in this country in the 21st century. It's going to be a decade or more before we really have all these questions answered.

Interesting article about the hoaxster who made up bigfoot on the occasion of his death. Turns out the footprints were a fake, and he may have had something to do with the films, too.

Like the crop circles, I'm fascinated by this stuff - not because I think there's anything in the slightest bit odd behind it. I think that in both cases you have a small group of dedicated pranksters setting this stuff up - almost as performance art - and then just sitting back and watching the hullabaloo. It's fascinating when one of them comes clean and you can learn some of the stuff that's been happening behind the scenese.

Sash at the The Volokh Conspiracy is bemoaning the lack of actual fortune cookies, these days. I recall when I was working for MCI in Colorado Springs, CO, we would often work late and order in Chinese food. The particular cookies this rstaurant used were literal fortune cookies: All of them were very specific predictions about money, stuff that was ludicrously specific, like, "In twenty years a long-lost Uncle will die, leaving you a diamond mine in South Africa." The only other one I particularly remember was, "Your next car will not be a Mercedes, but one better." For the record, it wasn't, although it was better than the car I had at the time.

The Ninth circuit has just reasserted that the 2nd Ammendment provides no individual right to gun ownership (or anything else, for that matter). I'm still reading the opinion, but it is interesting that they seem to acknowledge that this is still very much a debated question ("Given the dearth of both reasoned and definitive judicial authority, a particularl active academic debate has developed...Compare, e.g.Eugene Volokh[!], The Commonplace Second Ammendment...and Sanford Levinson, The Embarassing Second Ammendment..."). Unfortunately, they seem to feel that they have settled the debate.

I'd guess from here that the Appellants will appeal and hopefully the Supreme Court will take up the question, since the 9th and 5th circuits have clearly issued opinions that blatantly disagree with each other. Maybe we'll actually have some settled answer to the question of an individual right to own guns by, say, June of 2004?

CNN linked to this story from thier front page with the short title, "FBI Director Demands Change." My first thought was some optimism that he was demanding change because he was homeless after being fired for failing to clean house in his own agency. Unfortunately it seems he's just, you know, demanding things be different. In his own agency. While he fails to clean house.