StephanKinsella.com

Recent post on LRC Blog about Bushisms.

Another recent post, Property in the Law, quotes some interesting civil-law language on the nature of property rights from Professor Yiannopoulos’s treatise.

Another post discusses C.S. Lewis’ comments on women fighting in battle.

Although I personally like footnotes and find them indispensible in academic writing (and much better than endnotes, which I despise), I’ve always liked the following comments by Bryan Garner, in The Elements of Legal Style (page 93). Garner notes that although footnotes can usefully refer you to other references, “you can hardly ignore, at the foot of every page, the notes that ‘run along, like little angry dogs barking at the text.’ These days, the notes are more likely Great Danes than chihuahuas.” [Quoting S.M. Crothers, “That History Should Be Readable,” in The Gentle Reader 172 (1903; repr. 1972).

Huebert and Karen both chimed in again on this topoic. Karen writes, “I love sports, and more than just tennis, as another libertarian chides in on this. (By the way, tennis is the only sport where the women are far better to watch than the men. The volleying and net play is much better, and the woman’s game is more competitive and spirited.)”

I would say this: well, women’s volleyball is better than men’s. As for tennis, men’s used to be better; but as they and rackets got more and more powerful, the men’s game became more and more boring. Now the women are like the men (think: Borg, Lendl, McEnroe, Connors) used to be. I am also partial to LSU college football, I have to admit.

I might as well get into this back-and-forth between Huebert and De Coster. I tend to agree w/ Huebert about the execrableness of Friends and those who watch professional sports (tennis excepted). Except Jennifer Aniston’s repeated appearances in tight shirts w/ no bra.

When people refer to the media as “the fourth estate”. That irks me. It’s almost as bad as “salad days” or “bumper crop”.

Also, people who name their kids wrong-sex (Gail, Leslie, Evelyn), or titular names, like “Judge” or “Gouvernor”.

Karen De Coster critiques the IP and gay marriage theory of Kelly Hollowell here. I wrote Dr. Hollowell the following email in response to her piece.

“Dr. Hollowell,

As a fellow patent attorney, and also as a libertarian and personally conservative person–I wanted to just say that your argument re gay marriage seems weak to me. First, it is based on a given unconstitutional statute legislated by an assembly of men, the Congress. I.e., it’s just an argument from authority, and a bad one [bad authority, I meant] at that; combined w/ an argument by analogy.

Careful thought shows this is really a debate about semantics. If the state exists, of course it should enforce contractual agreements. If 2 or 3 or more people who cohabit want to form some kind of social unit for various purposes, so be it. The law should not ask what sexual activities people are engaging in. If 2 spinster sisters live together and want to unite their estates, why not, if they find it useful. It’s just a civil or contractual union. A way of pooling their assets, and of delegating authority to each other to make decisions for one another in cases of incapacitance/death. So then the question is what do “we” “call it”. I would not call it marriage, if 2 homosexual men lived together and contractually united their estates etc. Some others might. I am free not to; others are free to call it what they will.

So should the law–state law–“recognize” gay marriage? The question is just confused. It should enforce agreements. Sure. Those include the agreements ancillary or incident to traditional (heterosexual) marriage, and other agreements. So if there is a state law (e.g., a state) that allows this… I guess the only question is what should the *label* or header of the statute be? What *word* should be used to describe the voluntary unions that state courts will enforce? Is it really a big fight that the word “marriage” not be “officially” used by the states? Bah. Ridiculous. I agree, they should not; but is this really what the fight is about?

To my mind this is all just a symptom of decaying morals. Yes, they are decaying; yes, regular mariage is in trouble. Not because gays might, or could, marry; but because of the decline in morals which makes that possible. Banning a symptom of a decline in morals won’t change the cause.

My view is that the main problem with recognizing gay marriage (aside from what this trend says about the shift in underlying morals) is that it gives ammo to the leftist-gay groups to demand affirmative action/equal protection etc. As long as it is illegal, it’s hard for them to persuade courts or legislators to insist they have to be treated as a suspect class etc. And I do believe that is their goal. But why not be honest in our counter: that there is nothing wrong w/ the law enforceing agreements, even ones that some would privately label “gay marriage”; but that we oppose it b/c it’s the nose under the camel’s tent, and besides, gays can easily achieve most civil benefits of marriage now by careful use of wills, living wills, trusts, powers of attorney, etc.

Sincerely, Stephan Kinsella”

You sometimes hear a radio commercial where the guy says, “to order, just call 1-800-555-5555 or click on www.gizmo.com”. You don’t click-on a website, you moron, you browse or visit it. You can only click on a hyperlink.

This also calls to mind innumerable colleagues and friends who double-click on hyperlinks. That drives me bonkers. You would think, after doing it a few hundred times and seeing the link start to be activated on the first click, you would gradually figure out that only single clicks are needed for hyperlinks, unlike double clicks to open files. But nooooooo. People are so stupid.

On the one hand, it’s easier to destroy than to create (think of the handful of savages that tore down the World Trade Center on 9/11, which took thousands of civilized people and billions of dollars to build); yet on the other hand, it’s easier to defend than attack (think of the rule of thumb in Risk, where you have to have a larger army than the defenders to win a battle).

It’s bad enough when laymen do it, but in a radio commercial today, a realtor kept describing himself as a “ree-luh-der”. You moron, it’s ree-uhl-ter; you know, like REAL estate, REALTY… you don’t pronounce those ree-la or ree-lah-tee do you? People are such idiots. These are the same morons who insist on calling me Steven or Stephen or Steve.

In a past post, I mused that it might be a good idea to give a $10 donation to the next Democrat Presidential candidate, to cause them to spend multiples of that with follow up mailings trying to milk you for more. Give them $10 and it costs them $30.

Here’s another political strategeregem. Say Kerry proposes tax increases estimated at $1 trillion. Then Bush, in debates, could keep accusing Kerry of proposing a $1.4 trillion, or $2 trillion, tax increase–i.e., exaggerate it. Kerry can’t let the false accusation stand. “No George, that’s wrong, it’s only $1 trillion.” Bush could say, “Oh, my mistake. Only $1 trillion. Thanks for correcting me.”

Since Europeans usually do their addresses day/month/year (which is more logical than the US system of month/day/year), I wonder if, eventually, they will start to think that our 9/11 occurred on November 9.

There are a not-insignficant number of nutjobs, wackos, conspiracy theorists, losers, racists, skinheads, etc., who associate with movements like libertarianism, conservatism, militias, etc. Why is this? My theory is that when a view is marginalized by mainstream American–e.g., libertarianism, militias, etc.–then successful people tend not to associate with it, since they have something to lose. Some of us have the fortitude and type of careers that allow us to swim against the tide anyway, yet still keep a foot in a successful career, but not everyone. So these movements tend to draw disproportionate numbers of those who have little to lose–i.e., losers, uneducated, those on the bottom rungs of society. This is why, for example, at libertarian-party or similar events I’ve spoken at or attended, where, e.g., the topic might be something academic like whether decentralized legal systems (judge-made law, courts, common law, Roman law) are superior to centralized, legislation-based systems, many of the people who show up are uneducated Harley riders who ask you over and over again about the nutball “common law court” stuff (this happened to me one time at a FEE-sponsored discussion group in Valley Forge), or ask you to show where in the tax code you are “required” to pay income tax, etc.

And this is why militia movements, for example, which in the older days would have upstanding citizens and “patriots” as its supporters, now are populated with gun nuts, racists, skinheads, anti-semites, etc. These are the type of people who have nothing to lose so have the luxury of joining a marginalized movement, thereby making it even more marginalized and crankish.