StephanKinsella.com

The following was passed on to me by one of my favorite writers, John C. Wright (whose work I have commended before) — it’s a comment by Catholic writer John Zmirak:

… Leave aside any libertarian arguments about the proper limits of the State; this State, our State, is relentlessly secular. Its version of secularism is almost devoid of a true understanding of the Natural Law. Ironically, Natural Law–our notion of the truths and goods knowable even to pagans–is rejected out of hand by pretty much everyone but Catholics. Which renders Natural Law arguments pretty much . . . useless. In America, State action will be secular in spirit, utilitarian in execution, and in the service of the modern culture of death. Until and unless we can evangelize and overtly Christianize the State–I’m not holding my breath–we are morally obliged to shrink it, squeeze it, entangle in complications and starve it of funds however we can. We are obliged to be libertarians for the duration.

What this means is that the daydream of so many Catholics nostalgic for the “good old days” of FDR and Monsignor Ryan (the “Right Reverend New Dealer,” as he called himself), the fantasy of a pro-life Democratic party, is in fact a toxic fantasy. It’s an impure thought, to be banished the old-fashioned way: with cold showers and exercise. The proper place of Catholics, for the foreseeable future, is alongside the people at Tea Parties, supporting candidates like Ron Paul–even if some of our fellow travelers are packing heat or smell of weed.

A 1993 “Baby Blues” cartoon I found in some old files.

This is a brilliant blog post from Free Keene arguing for difference between anarchists and minarchists.

Update: See also Confused Reason writer Cathy Young Anti-SOPA but still pro-copyright and Reason: Copyright Should Last Half A Century

here:

The recent issue of IP Law & Business has a fascinating Q&A with
Harvard law professor Charles Nesson, who is representing Joel Tenenbaum, a 25-year-old doctoral student being sued by five record companies under the Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Act of 1999. Tenenbaum refused to settle, and Nesson is arguing “that the law is unconstitutional because it allows for ‘grossly excessive’ awards.”

While it’s demeaning to have to hope for a just statutory interpretation by fake judges appointed by the criminal state of an artificial positive law enacted by “law”-makers of another department of the same criminal gang, it’s heartening to see some people fighting back, and some otherwise mainstream legal professionals fighting for them. I doubt Nesson is a libertarian or against IP completely, but some of his comments are great. For example, he says,

“With the Net, there are artists who are figuring out ways to profit without using this clout of the copyright law. … I believe the recording companies have great skills to offer artists, and there may need to be some reshuffling in the way those skills are passed around and the ways in which revenue is returned. … If you see the United States in a competition with other nations in a digital world, and you think the best asset you have for the future are your own children, who will become the digerati, who think imaginatively in that environment, you will be against the idea that you use the law, the power of the state, to make those learners fearful of clicking on the Net.”

(Aside: I also like how the same publication refers to a recent patent settlement as a “tax”: Intuit Taxed $120 Million by Intellectual Ventures.)

[Cross-posted at AgainstMonopoly and Mises]

The Supreme Court has declined to take an appeal of a case that held that Cablevision does not infringe copyright by providing a “remote DVR” service to its customers–the court reasoned that it is the customers, not Cablevision, who are making copies of programs, which they are permitted to do (if Cablevision were the one “making” the copies, it would be “more akin to video-on-demand, for which they negotiate licensing fees with cable providers”). The upshot is that consumers won’t need to have a DVR box in their homes to record shows; they will be hosted on the servers of the cable or other provider. If only there were not a copyright statute in place in the first place, the courts would not have to engage in contorted reasoning to achieve just results.

[Cross-posted at LRC and AgainstMonopoly]

As online shoppers know, sales tax is usually not collected by the online merchant when the buyer is in another state. This is because of Supreme Court decisions holdings that the Constitution’s commerce clause prohibits “states from compelling out-of-state mail-order houses to collect use taxes on sales to in-state residents,” because the foreign merchant has insufficient contacts with the state. The State of North Carolina was not too happy about this. It threatened to compel Amazon to start collecting sales tax for purchases made by NC residents on the grounds that Amazon has a sufficient presence in North Carolina by virtue of paying commissions to NC residents via its “Associates” affiliate program. In response, Amazon has shut down its affiliates program in North Carolina, as of last Friday. Good for Amazon!

[Cross-posted at LRC]

I received a postcard today from the Republican Party of Fort Bend County (I work in that county, outside Houston) with an invitation to the 2010 Lincoln-Reagan Dinner, with special guest speaker Laura Ingraham. I’m trying to think of something more nausea-inducing than the idea of attending this. Blech.

[Cross posted at LRC.]

One of Canaletto’s gorgeous paintings of Venice’s Piazza San Marco is used as the header and theme for Libertarian Papers. Our friend and podcast producer Gil Guillory was in Italy for a work assignment recently (no offense, left-libertarian opponents of “wage slavery”) and visited said Piazza–sporting a new beard. Lucky guy!

When I started practicing law in 1992 I had framed some nice prints of the Trumbull painting of the Signing of the Declaration of Independence; a facsimile of the Declaration itself; and the famous Rembrandt Peale portrait of Thomas Jefferson. In the years since I’ve become more and more disgusted and cynical about constitutional sentimentalism and have become much more critical of America’s baleful effect on world history and my rosy view of its founding. Contrary to Randian mythology, America was not some minarchist paradise at its founding (and even if it was, minarchism is just another form of statism; see my What It Means To Be an Anarcho-Capitalist): it was a flawed utopian experiment resulting from an illegal coup d’etat (see my The Institute for Justice on our Munificent Constitution). It was a society that condoned slavery, one of the worst evils ever, while establishing a constructivist new order based on a “rational, scientific” paper document and rejecting traditional, superior, unwritten, monarchist limits on state power, thus setting the world on the path of democracy and democratic tyranny, and all the evils of the 20th Century–WWI, WWII, the Holocaust, the Cold War, Communism, Naziism, Fascism, Great Depressions I and II–not to mention the illegal, immoral, murderous, centralizing War to Prevent Southern Independence (which some “libertarian” centralists for some reason support!) (see my When Did the Trouble Start?; Hoppe’s Murray N. Rothbard and the Ethics of Liberty; also my post Supreme Court: Innocence is No Defense; also Manuel Lora, Constitution Worship Undermines the Cause for Freedom).

And while I still admire many things about Jefferson, let’s face it, he was a slaveowner, probably a slave-raper; he violated the Constitution while in office; and he helped foist on the world this utopian experiment that has led to the present state of the world.

So, I can no longer bear to look at these icons in my office, and am giving them away (maybe to Gil Guillory).

Updates: See my post Jeff Hummel’s “The Constitution as a Counter-Revolution.”

Paul Aubert writes:

Man, you’ve got to chill. Don’t you know that you live in the greatest country ever even thought about, and aren’t you grateful to all of the soldiers who died for you to be able to spew your bile?

Obviously, that was a little bit of my sarcasm, but isn’t it tiring how every single non-Christian holiday turns to military-worship? There is even some military-worship creep in the Christian holidays, like Easter and Christmas. We have (in order):

1. Memorial Day in May, a day to memorialize dead soldiers (and to cheer on our current wars);

2. July 4th, a day originally meant to commemorate the signing of the document of secession from Great Britain, now designed to spew disgusting sayings like, “Remember those soldiers who died so you could be free” (and to cheer on our current wars);

3. Labor Day (in September), a holiday with Communist origins that we somehow link to remembering soldiers who died for our freedom (and to cheer on our current wars); and

4. Veterans Day (in November)…insert everything I just said for Nos. 1-3 above.

Starting in May, there is a day every other month until November to make sure we’re all still on board with the military and killing. We even interject a little military-worship into Thanksgiving (don’t forget to thank those soldiers who are killing, maiming and being killed in places like Afghanistan and Iraq so you can be free).

The absolute worst is when you go to church on the weekend closest to these days; the church is draped in flags, and we sing disgusting songs of murder, like “Glory, Glory, Halleluiah.” We pray for our soldiers to kill foreign civilians before they kill us because we’re free. Mark Twain’s War Prayer is priceless for getting this point across.

It’s gotten to the point where I dread even going to church on those weekends (like the weekend coming up).

Another wrote:

Just read your 6/29/09, 10:26 AM post on the LRC Blog. Also used the included link to re-read your “When Did the Trouble Start?” As had happened before, it reminded me of this closing speech from one of my favorite movies, The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951).*

You probably know about it, but if not . . .

Klaatu: “I am leaving soon, and you will forgive me if I speak bluntly. The universe grows smaller every day, and the threat of aggression by any group, anywhere, can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all, or no one is secure. Now, this does not mean giving up any freedom, except the freedom to act irresponsibly. Your ancestors knew this when they made laws to govern themselves and hired policemen to enforce them. We, of the other planets, have long accepted this principle. We have an organization for the mutual protection of all planets and for the complete elimination of aggression. The test of any such higher authority is, of course, the police force that supports it. For our policemen, we created a race of robots. Their function is to patrol the planets in spaceships like this one and preserve the peace. In matters of aggression, we have given them absolute power over us. This power cannot be revoked. At the first sign of violence, they act automatically against the aggressor. The penalty for provoking their action is too terrible to risk. The result is, we live in peace, without arms or armies, secure in the knowledge that we are free from aggression and war. Free to pursue more… profitable enterprises. Now, we do not pretend to have achieved perfection, but we do have a system, and it works. I came here to give you these facts. It is no concern of ours how you run your own planet, but if you threaten to extend your violence, this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned-out cinder. Your choice is simple: join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer. The decision rests with you.”

Now I ask you, how could anyone not love that movie? And let me suggest that you replace those discarded office icons with a nice big beautiful picture of Gort.

*Actress Patricia Neal thought in 1951 this was one of the silliest films ever and, in scene after scene, could barely keep a straight face while delivering her lines. In later years she changed her mind, calling it a marvelous movie that she was very proud to have been in.

Another wrote:

The Catoites rejoice: “This ruling is the latest in a series of steps the Court has taken to strike down race-conscious actions that violate individual rights…” What individual right is Shapiro referring to? The right to get promoted by a government agency?

[Cross-posted at LewRockwell.com]

The Supreme Court has ruled 5-4 in favor of the white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., on the grounds that they “were unfairly denied promotions because of their race.

I predict hypocritical reaction from both left and right, split along the same lines as the majority and dissenting side in this case. The left will decry this, despite it being logically implied by their racialism. The right will support this, despite it flying in the face of their anti-judicial activism and pretend-federalism.

The libertarian centralists (see also Objectivists and Federalism; Bolick on Judicial Activism) will no doubt cheer this case … even though it’s a precarious 5-4, and the next likely Justice, Judge Sotomayor, voted the other way on this case.

[Cross-posted at LRC and The Shadow Justice]