Clear the Censorship

I am utterly astounded that so many Colorado "conservatives" endorse censorship. Let's get this straight, friends: if you endorse censorship, you are an enemy of liberty. This is just not a negotiable issue.

Amendment 54, a campaign censorship law passed by (bare) majority last year, thankfully has been suspended by a Denver court. This is not a surprise, given the measure violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and contradicts Article II, Section 10 of the Colorado Constitution, which states:

Freedom of speech and press. No law shall be passed impairing the freedom of speech; every person shall be free to speak, write or publish whatever he will on any subject, being responsible for all abuse of that liberty; and in all suits and prosecutions for libel the truth thereof may be given in evidence, and the jury, under the direction of the court, shall determine the law and the fact.

This is hardly ambiguous text.

I was therefore surprised to read an article at Clear the Bench Colorado endorsing Amendment 54. The article reminds us that the measure "passed by a vote of the citizens of Colorado." So what? Since when do Republicans endorse pure democracy? The entire point of constitutional government is to protect individual rights from mob rule.

Here is the central argument from Clear the Bench:

Once again, a judge has acted on the behalf of special interest groups intent on "gaining favor and contracts from public officials" through political contributions -- "probably triggering a flood of campaign contributions" from those seeking to curry favor while the 'temporary injunction' remains in effect.

The same argument could apply to McCain-Feingold. Does Clear the Bench also endorse the federal censorship law and decry the Supreme Court's limitation of it?

The purpose of Amendment 54 (now part of Article 28 of the Colorado Constitution) is to prevent recipients of no-bid government contracts from contributing to campaigns. The reasoning behind the restriction is obvious enough: people who benefit from tax dollars ought not influence the spending of those tax dollars. But while that reasoning points to a legitimate problem, it does not justify censorship.

With governments at all levels spending so much money through forced wealth transfers -- about 45 percent of the total economy -- political pull is just the way things operate. The only real way to solve that problem is to cut government spending and restore a free market. Until that happens, campaign censorship laws only further violate our rights without addressing the fundamental problem.

At a less fundamental level, if there is a problem particularly with no-bid contracts, then the solution is to restrict or eliminate no-bid contracts (and open contracts to bidding).

If we were to extend the argument that people who receive government funds should be censored, that would apply also to every student who takes government-backed loans, every senior citizen who accepts Social Security or Medicare, every employee and contractor of the government, and so on. In other words, given today's mixed economy and high rate of government spending, the logical conclusion of Amendment 54 is near-universal censorship.

Amendment 54 is shockingly broad; its limitations extend far beyond any direct connection between a no-bid contract and related taxes. Consider the details:

* Amendment 54 prevents contractors, "for the duration of the contract and for two years thereafter," from contributing to any political party or state or local candidate. There need be absolutely no connection between the political race and the contract.

* A contractor cannot "induce by any means" a campaign contribution "on behalf of his or her immediate family member." An "immediate family member" is defined as "any spouse, child, spouse's child, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, parent, sibling, grandparent, grandchild, stepbrother, stepsister, stepparent, parent-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, aunt, niece, nephew, guardian, or domestic partner." In other words, a contractor cannot seek to persuade these people that they ought to financially support any candidate. To be enforced, the measure requires thought police.

* The measure also prohibits campaigns from "intentionally" accepting funds proscribed by the measure. What is "intentional?" How is that proved? What this does is allow big-moneyed interests to go after candidates they don't like, discouraging potential candidates who can't afford a team of lawyers from running.

Amendment 54 is bad law. It is unjust law. It is unconstitutional law. It deserves to be thrown out.

Conservatives need to learn that the opposite of "judicial activism" is not mob rule. Judges play a legitimate role in protecting the rights of the individual from the whims of the majority.

It is a shame that Clear the Bench, which has undertaken a good and noble cause in advocating courts that uphold the rule of law, has muddied the waters by endorsing censorship. Let's hope that organization and conservatives more broadly correct that failing.

Electricity Rates Would Skyrocket

Listen to Barack Obama explain, "Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket." (Via Joshua Sharf.)

Save Justin's Health Insurance!

Save Justin's health insurance! The crew of the Independence Institute have produced a great, short video explaining one key problem with political controls of health insurance: they can outlaw low-cost, high-deductible insurance (such as my wife and I enjoy). Nice job, guys.

Reject Political Control of Health Care

The following article originally appeared in the June 24, 2009, edition of Grand Junction's Free Press.

Reject political control of health care

by Linn and Ari Armstrong

Medical decisions can be made by voluntary agreements among patients, doctors, and insurers. Or they can be made by politicians and their appointed bureaucrats. President Obama hopes for more of the latter.

While details remain sketchy, the centerpiece of Obama's plan is a "public" option, meaning that taxpayers would subsidize more health care, probably amounting to well over a trillion dollars over the coming decade.

Calling these forced wealth transfers "public" is misleading. Generally hospitals, doctors' offices, and insurance plans are already open to the public. Any member of the public is welcome to ask for these services and pay for them. But in Obamaland "public" means something different: it means that some members of the public can force other members of the public to help pay for their health care.

Recently Obama said that his "public" plan would "ensure coverage for people where the free market system fails." He said, "We've got to admit that the free market has not worked perfectly when it comes to health care."

The reason that the "free market has not worked perfectly" is that there is no free market in health care, nor has there been one for many decades, Obama's magnificent lie notwithstanding. The problems with American medicine arise from decades of political interference in medicine -- so of course Obama wants to expand such interference.

Between Medicare, Medicaid, and other tax-funded programs, government spends nearly half of all health-care dollars. In addition to driving up federal spending and threatening financial catastrophe in coming years, such programs increase health costs for everyone else by loading down doctors with paperwork and red tape, underpaying doctors, and artificially increasing the services demanded.

The federal government has entrenched employer-paid insurance through tax policy. Lose your job, lose your insurance. This especially screws people who develop medical conditions and then lose their jobs. Because of the tax incentives, such insurance also encourages people to run everything through insurance, which again drives up prices by increasing paperwork and decreasing the incentive to monitor costs. It would be like buying auto insurance that covers oil changes and tire rotations.

Among the many other political controls of medicine, both state and federal governments impose all kinds of insurance mandates, driving up insurance premiums and pricing many out of the market.

So, now that federal politicians have completely screwed up the private insurance market, they want to provide tax-funded insurance. How generous.

But Team Obama is clever. In further destroying the free market in medicine, Obama nevertheless adopts the rhetoric of capitalism. He said, "If the private insurance companies have to compete with a public option, it will keep them honest and it will help keep their prices down."

In the context of a free market, open competition indeed encourages companies to remain innovative and cost-conscious. But we are not talking about a free market here. We are talking about the federal government essentially knee-capping private insurance companies and then forcing people to pay protection money to finance the political plan. It is the "competition" of gangsters.

Obama dismisses as irrational "fear, that somehow once you have a public plan that government will take over the entire health care system."

Really? The logic behind the plan is to punish private insurance providers and tax-subsidize the "competition." Such a plan is just a back-door approach to eventually establishing "single-payer," meaning the federal government assumes responsibility for most medical payments. And he who pays the piper calls the tune. What the federal government finances, the federal government controls.

If you think we're stretching, watch the YouTube video, "The Public Plan Deception -- It's Not About Choice." In the past Obama professed support for single-payer. Earlier this year Democratic Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky said she agrees that "the public option will put the private insurance industry out of business and lead to single-payer."

We agree that insurance companies play too great a role in our health decisions and fail to offer the best kinds of insurance. Again, this is strictly a result of federal interference in insurance, and the solution is to get politicians out of the insurance industry, not let them take it over completely.

Obama has also been clever in tying the political takeover of health financing to tort reform. Obama told doctors that, if they get on board, he will do something about "excessive defensive medicine," referring to the insane and unjust law suits often brought against doctors that raise costs for the rest of us.

But if the legal system needs reform -- and we agree it does -- that should be done for its own sake, not used as a club to force doctors into compliance.

Political interference in medicine caused the problems. You're crazy if you think more of the same will solve those problems. And you're putting the health, finances, and liberty of the rest of us at grave risk.

Health Policy on the Radio

I joined Bob Glass on his "Radio Free America" show on Tuesday evening. I appear about half way into the first hour.

To correct a minor mistake: I talked about a swimmer shackled with weights; that example actually came from economist Peter Boettke of George Mason. Here's the direct quote:

"If you bound the arms and legs of gold-medal swimmer Michael Phelps, weighed him down with chains, threw him in a pool and he sank, you wouldn't call it a 'failure of swimming'. So, when markets have been weighted down by inept and excessive regulation, why call this a 'failure of capitalism'?"

We spent much of the first hour talking about why health insurance is so often tied to employment. It has everything to do with federal tax manipulations. The result is that, if you lose your job, you lose your insurance (on such plans). Another result is that a lot of people develop medical conditions, then lose their job-tied insurance and have a hard time buying insurance elsewhere. To a large degree the federal government has destroyed the health insurance market.

I talk a bit about Health Savings Accounts, which allows people to use pre-tax money to pay for routine care and spend less on a high-deductible plan. I suggested that expanding HSAs would be a good reform moving in the direction of free markets.

The article I mentioned by Paul Hsieh, MD, and Lin Zinser, about political meddling in medicine, is available through The Objective Standard. See also the web page for Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine.

In the second hour, we talked about how Obama is trying to steel the rhetoric of "competition" and apply it to his "public" plan, which is all about imposing force to drive out the legitimate competition of the free market.

We also got more philosophical, talking about why health care is not a right. Bob offered some particularly nice comments on that score. The upshot is that you have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but not to goods and services produced by others. A legitimate right does not entail any claim on the resources of others, nor does it permit the use of force to confiscate the wealth or labor of others.

Near the end we talked about Obama's claims that, under his plan, you'll continue to be able to choose your own doctors. I said, "That's like choosing your own bread line in the Soviet Union... You might be free to choose Doctor A or Doctor B. But what's going to happen with the political takeover of medicine is that the best doctors are simply going to leave the field. The best students are not going to go into medicine. We're going to be left with the people willing to kiss the backsides of Washington DC bureaucrats. Is that the kind of doctor you want taking care of your health?"

Featured in Money

Money magazine features a short write-up about Jennifer and me pertaining to our Health Savings Account. See page 80 of the July issue.

The upshot is that we pay $148 per month for health insurance (for the two of us) for a high-deductible plan, then use our HSA (which is pre-tax money) for all our health care.

I thought this was a good quote from me: "We are thinking all the time about how our behavior is affecting our health. We eat the right foods. We exercise."

And, by the way, I just scheduled a doctor's visit for myself (my wife sees a different doctor in the Fall) and dental visits for both of us.

The photo in the magazine shows us standing on the dam of Ketner Lake (reservoir actually) in Westminster.

Sotomayor Contributed to Mortgage Crisis

I continue my comments on Sonia Sotomayor today by pointing to an article about Sotomayor's role in the mortgage meltdown (thanks again to Jim Pfaff.)

John Carney writes:

Sonia Sotomayor... served on the board of a New York State agency charged with providing discounted mortgages to middle and low income homebuyers from 1987 to 1992. During the time, she was a consistent advocate of pushing the agency to provide more mortgages to low-income home buyers. In short, she advocated the kind of aggressive lending practices that helped create the mortgage meltdown. ...

The agency, which is called SONYMA, is a local version of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It initially provided mortgage insurance to first time homebuyers, mostly on middle-income housing. It expanded into lower-income homebuyers and then into directly buying mortgages in an attempt to push down mortgage rates. During her time on the agency's board, Sotomayor was a consistent critic of its activities, according to this story in the New York Times. And her critique was always the same: not enough loans were being insured on homes for lower-income and minority buyers.

As Carney notes, while Sotomayor's participation preceded the major bubble, the sorts of policies she (and many others) advocated led directly to the mortgage crisis.

For a more complete account of how federal policies created the mortgage bubble and subsequent bust, read Thomas Sowell's The Housing Boom and Bust.

Twitter Feed

Readers may notice a new feature on this web page: a Twitter feed for links to Colorado news of interest to free-market activists. I'll also post a few links to national stories. I'm devoting my Twitter account exclusively to such posts. I've also started tagging my Twitter entries with a single all-caps word to help categorize the issue.

Follow me on Twitter!

Cuffy Geithner

I'm re-reading Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged right now, and this story sounds like it comes straight out of the novel:

Core Reforms Held Firm As Much Else Fell Away
In Triage Mode, Economic Team's Goal To Expand Fed's Power Trumped Others
By David Cho and Zachary A. Goldfarb
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, June 18, 2009

... Fresh from meeting with Obama, [Treasury Secretary Timothy F.] Geithner asked the lobbyists what they were up to. When they explained they preferred that a council of regulators, rather than the central bank, safeguard the financial markets, Geithner silenced the discussion with a string of obscenities, according to people who were present.

"I don't believe in rule by committee," he said. ...

Apparently, in Geithner's world the only alternative to "rule by committee" is rule by a strong man.

Are you paying attention, friends?

Save the Flies!

Move over, whales. Chill out, penguins and polar bears. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has a new campaign: save the flies.

Yes, the flies. As in, the maggot-laying, filthy flies.

No, this is not a story from the Onion. Apparently we're not getting punk'd. It's not April Fool's Day. PETA seriously wants to save the flies. Not the flies joyously buzzing about in the wild, the flies in your house. No joke.

During filming of an interview with Barack Obama on CNBC, a fly pestered the president. Obama said, and I quote, "Hey, get out of here." The interviewer said, "That's the most persistent fly I've ever seen." Then the fly landed on Obama's left hand, and Obama gave it good hard slap with his right hand, killing it, dead, dead, dead. The interviewer said (and again I quote directly), "Nice." Obama said, "Now, where were we? That was pretty impressive, wasn't it? I got the sucker... It's right there, you want to film that? There it is."

Why, the heartless bastard. See the travesty for yourself:



According to the Associated Press, "PETA is sending President Barack Obama a Katcha Bug Humane Bug Catcher, a device that allows users to trap a house fly and then release it outside."

If you think this is a joke, check out PETA's store, where you can purchase the contraption for a mere eight dollars.

As the AP reports, PETA spokesman Bruce Friedrich said, "We support compassion even for the most curious, smallest and least sympathetic animals. We believe that people, where they can be compassionate, should be, for all animals... [S]watting a fly on TV indicates he's not perfect, and we're happy to say that we wish he hadn't."

Okay. Let me just come out and say it. The PETA crew is insane. It is not "humane" to catch a fly and release it into the wild. It is stupid. It is pathetic. It is ridiculous. It is insulting to the humanity -- and the intelligence -- of actual people.

The reality is that Obama's swift, decisive action toward the fly ranks among his most impressive moments as president. If Obama would stand up to Ahmadinejad's Iran or North Korea with half the backbone that he stood up to that fly, I wouldn't worry nearly as much about the threat of nuclear warfare.

Kudos to Twitter

Google caved to Chinese censors. But Twitter is actively helping the Iranian protesters retain free speech.

As Fox reports:

Iranian Twitterers, many writing in English, posted photos of huge demonstrations and bloodied protesters throughout the weekend, detailing crackdowns on students at Tehran University and giving out proxy Web addresses that let users bypass the Islamic Republic's censors.

By Monday evening, it had become such a movement that Twitter postponed maintenance scheduled for the wee hours of the morning, California time -- midday Tuesday in Iran.

"Our network partners at NTT America recognize the role Twitter is currently playing as an important communication tool in Iran," wrote Twitter co-founder Biz Stone in a blog posting.

"Tonight's planned maintenance has been rescheduled to tomorrow between 2-3p PST (1:30a in Iran)," he added.

I have signed on to Facebook, but I've resisted Twitter. Obviously, I may have underestimated the importance of the service.

Sandstorm In Iran

With all the bad news at home, I was inspired to see a photo of mass demonstrations in Iran, posted by Fox.

There are also plenty photos of blood and fire. Police forces have brutalized many and killed some. So the news is also tragic and frightening.

And yet, people are marching, people are speaking out, and -- sometimes -- for the right reasons.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration is doing as little as possible to support reform.

Obviously, the protests are much larger than the presidential elections in Iran. Yet Mir-Hossein Mousavi is better than the tyrant Ahmadinejad. For example, Mousavi wants privately owned media, rather than state-owned propaganda machines. He has his serious problems; for instance, he pledged to "not suspend uranium enrichment," and he says he does not recognize Israel. Yet he also says, "I also believe that the abolition of the religious police is possible."

So Iran is hardly on the brink of a resoundingly pro-liberty revolution. And this could end very, very badly; some speculate that Ahmadinejad left the country so that escalated violence "would not reflect on him."

Still, it's good to see that many Iranians have the heart for something better. What can ultimately save Iran is the same thing that can ultimately save the United States and the world: a philosophy of reason and individual rights.

Here's my favorite line from the protests: "Ahmadinejad called us dust, we showed him a sandstorm."

Say It Ain't So, Joe

I met Joe "the Plumber" Wurzelbacher at the Sam Adams Alliance awards event April 18. My interview with him is available on YouTube. Joe struck me as a fun and friendly guy with some good leanings if a superficial understanding of individual rights.

I thought I was lobbing a softball when I asked him, "What do you see as the central proper purpose of the federal government? What is your basic message? What do the politicians go to Washington, DC to do?"

He began to complain about the "growth of government" under various presidents, then praised Teddy Roosevelt for nationalizing wilderness lands. I thought his answer on this point was basically wrong and that it lacked substance. But overall I thought he came across as a relatively well-informed and well-spoken "man from the street."

But then I heard about a couple of unfortunate comments he's made elsewhere, so of course I had to look them up.

In Christianity Today, where he argues that states should have the ability to ban abortion (which I regard as totally wrong and a violation of basic rights), he says of "queer" people (homosexuals): "I wouldn't have them anywhere near my children." That's just straight-up bigotry.

(He added, "I would love to hear our leaders actually check with God before he does stuff.")

Elsewhere, Joe said, "Back in the day, really, when people would talk about our military in a poor way, somebody would shoot 'em. And there'd be nothing said about that, because they knew it was wrong. You don't talk about our troops. You support our troops. Especially when our congressmen and senators sit there and say bad things in an ongoing conflict." That's just stupid. You don't shoot people for criticizing the military. Hello, free speech?

What's interesting about this in the context of Colorado politics is that the Independence Institute again bumped Christopher Buckley, an Obama supporter, this time for the ATF party on June 20, in favor of Joe the Plumber. Buckley is the author of Thank You for Smoking, which, it seems to me, would have fit the theme of the event rather well. Meanwhile, it's unclear to me what anti-nanny credentials Joe the Plumber brings to the table. Being at times a politically-incorrect ass is hardly the same thing as fighting the nanny state.

Liberty in Religion and Medicine

Today's Denver Post published a letter from Kaye Fissinger titled, "Church and medicine." She argues that Catholic churches should not be able to practice "Catholic doctrine on birth control, sterilization and abortion."

Following is my online reply:

I advocate the separation of church and state. I also advocate freedom and individual rights -- a free market -- in medicine. Kaye Fissinger's position violates both ideals.

Women have the right to get an abortion -- from willing providers. Patients do not have the right to force hospitals or doctors to offer abortions -- or any procedure -- against their judgment.

Likewise, customers do not have the right to demand that any business provide some good or service. You have no right to require that a car dealer sell the truck you want to buy, or a grocer particular produce, or a book store a particular book. If you walked into a Marxist bookshop and demanded to purchase Ayn Rand, for instance, that would be a violation of the bookstore's right of free speech. You do, however, have every right not to shop at that store.

The ones who properly set policy at a hospital are its owners. If a church owns a hospital, the church properly decides policy there. The owners do owe potential patients full disclosure regarding their faith-based policies. I would choose to do business elsewhere.

Doctors who disagree are free to work elsewhere. If you work for a bookstore, you agree to sell the books the owners wish to sell. The principle is no different when it comes to medicine. If you wish to sell different books or perform different medical procedures, get a job someplace else.

Hospitals should not need to rely on "conscience clauses" to protect their rights of property and contract. Likewise, a bookstore owner who dislikes pornography or some other sort of publication should not have to pass some "conscience" test to abstain from selling such works. Yet the logical implication of Fissinger's view is that somebody should be able to walk into a Christian bookstore and demand a book praising abortion, atheism, Satanism, or whatever (or into an atheist bookstore and demand a copy of the Bible).

Fissinger's interpretation of the First Amendment is completely wrong. The First Amendment prohibits state establishment of religion. It does not guarantee lack of dominance of some doctrine. For example, 75 percent of Americans are Christian. The First Amendment does not require mass conversion to other religions in order to prevent Christian "dominance."

The fundamental problem in medicine is that there is no free market in health care. Governments spend more than half of all health-care dollars. Tax-funded hospitals, like tax-funded schools, should not be able to impose any faith-based practice. The solution to this problem is not to expand political control of hospitals, but to return to liberty in medicine.

Brook Addresses Virginia Republicans

Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Center recently offered a keynote address for the 2009 Republican convention in Virginia.

If you are a Republican -- or if, like me, you hope for a Republican resurgence along proper ideals -- please listen to this speech. The future of your party -- and the future of our nation -- depends upon the kinds of ideas that Brook discusses.

If you are an advocate of liberty and individual rights, watch the speech from the perspective of how to craft an effective message.

Are You a Conservative or a Liberal?

The following article originally was published June 8, 2009, by Grand Junction's Free Press.

The recent Tea Party in Grand Junction arose in response to increasing government intervention in the economy. It was a spirited event, attended by old friends and people from all social and economic backgrounds.

The Western Slope Conservative Alliance held a follow-up rally, where the word "conservative" echoed through nearly every sentence. Unfortunately, nobody seemed to use the term with a common meaning.

What does it mean to be a conservative? Many of the same conservatives who claim to support free markets and liberty also endorse economic protectionism, censorship, welfare spending, corporate welfare, immigration restrictions, prohibitions of various substances and activities that violate nobody's rights, abortion bans, and so on.

Liberalism, one might think, has something to do with liberty. Yet today's liberals endorse political economic planning on a vast scale. They typically want to forcibly redistribute more wealth, impose controls on private property, and impose more "enlightened" forms of censorship.

Many of today's conservatives and liberals find common cause in the belief that politicians should largely control your life.

Economist and freedom fighter F. A. von Hayek said, "Conservatism, though a necessary element in any stable society, is not a social program; in its paternalistic, nationalistic, and power-adoring tendencies it is often closer to socialism than true liberalism..."

Russian immigrant Ayn Rand, known for her strong anti-socialist, anti- communist views, wondered, "What are the 'conservatives'? What is it that they are seeking to 'conserve'?" She wrote, "If the 'conservatives' do not stand for capitalism, they stand for and are nothing; they have no goal, no direction, no political principles, no social ideals, no intellectual values, no leadership to offer anyone."

Yet smug liberals who mock "backward" conservatives have more than a thing or two to learn themselves. They could begin by reviewing Thomas Paine's discussions with Edmund Burke regarding the French Revolution, mob law, and the rule of the masses.

Self-proclaimed liberals might also review Thomas Jefferson's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, with its emphasis on natural rights, free speech, and freedom of religion.

Hayek was as critical of liberals as he was of conservatives, writing that "'liberal' has come to mean the advocacy of almost every kind of government control. I am still puzzled why those in the United States who truly believe in liberty should not only have allowed the left to appropriate this almost indispensable term but should have assisted by beginning to use it themselves as a term of opprobrium."

Rand was yet more severe: "The majority of those who are loosely identified by the term 'liberals' are afraid to let themselves discover that what they advocate is statism. They do not want to accept the full meaning of their goal; they want to keep all the advantages and effects of capitalism, while destroying the cause, and they want to establish statism without its necessary effects. They do not want to know or to admit that they are the champions of dictatorship and slavery."

Rand also wrote, "The basic and crucial political issue of our age is: capitalism versus socialism, or freedom versus statism. For decades, this issue has been silenced, suppressed, evaded, and hidden under the foggy, undefined rubber-terms of 'conservatism' and 'liberalism' which had lost their original meaning and could be stretched to mean all things to all men."

Or, as a local friend (Roger) summarized, "If we cannot succinctly and accurately define what distinguishes a conservative from a liberal, the label is meaningless."

If you call yourself a conservative, what is it that you are trying to conserve? The massive welfare state built up in the 20th Century? A religious conception of law? The tradition of encroaching political power?

Or if you fancy yourself a liberal, are you trying to liberate bureaucrats to oversee our lives?

We suggest that conservatives busy themselves with conserving the founding principles of our nation, the ideals of life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness free from political interference.

Likewise, liberals should liberate people to run their own lives and control their own resources, according to their own judgment, free from political controls.

In either case, the proper purpose of government may be summarized as the protection of individual rights, which in the economic sphere means the establishment of capitalism.

We appreciate the perspective of economist George Reisman, who argues, "To the extent that present conditions departed from [capitalism, its defenders] would be radicals in seeking to change present conditions. To the extent that conditions in the past had approximated laissez-faire capitalism, they would be reactionary in seeking to reestablish such conditions. To the extent that present conditions were consistent with laissez-faire capitalism, they would be conservative in seeking to preserve those conditions."

We really don't care whether you call yourself conservative or liberal. What we care about is whether you defend or undermine individual rights.

Sam Adams Alliance Awards Videos

I went to Chicago on April 18 to pick up an award from the Sam Adams Alliance. My speech is transcribed elsewhere.

I strongly encourage other liberty-oriented activists in Colorado (and around the nation) to check out the Sam Adams Alliance web page and think about entering the contest next year.

Now the Sam Adams Alliance has released a short YouTube video with highlights of the event.


The video of my speech, and the introduction by Paul Jacob, is also available:



The organization's YouTube page offers more videos of the event.

Judge Sotomayor's Relativism

While I usually write about regional issues here, today's national issues are so crucially important that I'll devote substantial space to the views of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, nominated for the Supreme Court.

Empathy

First recall what President Obama offered in 2007 as a guideline for his nominee: "We need somebody who's got the heart to recognize -- the empathy to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges."

Richard Epstein replies:

Rather than targeting his favorite groups, Obama should follow the most time-honored image of justice: the blind goddess, Iustitia, carrying the scales of justice.

Iustitia is not blind to the general principles of human nature. Rather her conception of blindness follows Aristotle's articulation of corrective justice in his Nicomachean ethics. In looking at a dispute between an injurer and an injured party, or between a creditor and debtor, the judge ignores personal features of the litigant that bear no relationship to the merits of the case.

In other words, it shouldn't matter whether you're rich or poor, black or white, or whatever: if you commit a crime, you deserve the same punishment as everybody else. If you are involved in a civil dispute, you deserve to have your rights protected. A judge's job is not to "empathize" with one party over the other, but to achieve justice, regardless of the individual characteristics of the parties.

'Gender and National Origins'

Before delving into some of Sotomayor's judicial opinions, we might look in more detail at her 2001 Berkeley speech, as reproduced by the New York Times.

Sotomayor delivered the Judge Mario G. Olmos lecture; she praised Olmos for "promoting equality and justice for all people." (I don't know what views Olmos actually endorsed.) Notice the "and:" equality and justice are two distinct goals. Sotomayor is not advocating equality under the law, the sort of impartiality that Iustitia represents. She is advocating equality as a goal above and beyond justice. But equality in the egalitarian sense and justice are contradictory goals.

One who has not earned wealth does not deserve a portion of it equal to the one who has earned it. The criminal is not equal in stature to his victim, nor does he deserve equal treatment. A person who strives to improve his character is not the moral equal of one who does not.

For a frightening look at what egalitarianism means in practice, see the preview for the film 2081, or read the short story by Kurt Vonnegut on which it is based. (My only complaint with the story is that it emphasizes physical differences, when the important issue is the greatness of mind and character that people can achieve by their own effort.) Or read Aristophanes's classic, "Assembly of Women."

Sotomayor is skeptical that "we can and must function and live in a race and color-blind way."

On a positive note, she says her parents taught her "to love America and value its lesson that great things could be achieved if one works hard for it." This signals that Sotomayor is not dedicated to strict egalitarianism, yet a pragmatic, partial egalitarianism remains troublesome.

Sotomayor devotes considerable space to outlining the advancement of women and minorities in the judicial system. Her entire analysis focuses on numbers, not attributes. She urges "Latino and Latina organizations and community groups throughout the country... to continue their efforts of promoting women and men of all colors in their pursuit for equality in the judicial system." In other words, racial equality -- i.e., quotas -- is for her a primary goal, not merely a coincidental consequence of promoting the most qualified people for the positions.

Sotomayor distinguishes her views from those of Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum, which she summarizes:

Now Judge Cedarbaum expresses concern with any analysis of women and presumably again people of color on the bench, which begins and presumably ends with the conclusion that women or minorities are different from men generally. She sees danger in presuming that judging should be gender or anything else based. ... While recognizing the potential effect of individual experiences on perception, Judge Cedarbaum nevertheless believes that judges must transcend their personal sympathies and prejudices and aspire to achieve a greater degree of fairness and integrity based on the reason of law.

Sotomayor views this as a quaint and unrealistic ideal: "Although I agree with and attempt to work toward Judge Cedarbaum's aspiration, I wonder whether achieving that goal is possible in all or even in most cases."

To rephrase, Sotomayor thinks it is usually not possible for judges to fully "transcend their personal sympathies and prejudices and aspire to achieve a greater degree of fairness and integrity based on the reason of law."

She continues, "And I wonder whether by ignoring our differences as women or men of color we do a disservice both to the law and society."

Sotomayor is confusing physical distinctions with equality under the law. Equality before the law does not imply that we ignore all differences between different people. Good judges need not give equal consideration to both males and females as potential romantic partners, for instance. Yet, when it comes to applying the law, it is precisely the setting aside of legally irrelevant differences that is the key to justice.

Sotomayor then considers two possible causes of racially "different perspectives." The first is a difference in "cultural experiences." No problem there. But the second is the "postulate" that "we have basic differences in logic and reasoning." In other words, Sotomayor seriously entertains the notion that logic is different for people of different skin colors.

And here Sotomayor entertains a blatantly racist doctrine. The notion that logic -- and therefore the truth -- is different depending on the color of your skin constitutes a vicious doctrine at odds with the view set out by the Declaration of Independence and echoed by Martin Luther King that all people are created equal in their essential humanity, which is their capacity to use their reasoning mind to discover the facts of reality.

Some people are better at reasoning than others, generally because they have worked harder at it, but reason is the most essentially human capacity that we all share, and in its fundamental functioning it is the same for everybody. It is in this sense that we are all created equal, and this is the foundation of our equality under the law (rather than in abilities or in wealth).

If different people have a different logic and a different truth, then universal standards of justice are impossible. Justice becomes merely the system that one group sets up and enforces over other groups, which have inherently different conceptions of justice. This explains Sotomayor's obsession with judicial racial quotas; the judicial system cannot be fair to different racial groups unless those racial groups share the authority.

Of course, often a lack of representation by some group in the legal system stems from entrenched bigotry against that group, and then the judicial makeup reflects that injustice. But the solution to this problem is to end the entrenched bigotry and promote people according to their individual merits in order to enforce the universal standards of justice. Sotomayor's approach promises only to replace one racist approach with another.

Sotomayor's views quickly collapse to personal subjectivism. If different races have different logics and different truths, then perhaps individuals within those groups also have different truths. Sotomayor continues that there is "not a feminist approach but many," though all of them "are distinct from those structured in a world dominated by the power and words of men. Thus, feminist theories of judging are in the midst of creation" and will never be fully "solidified." Presumably the same analysis applies to race-based "logic."

Sotomayor agrees with Professor Martha Minnow of Harvard, who said "there is no objective stance but only a series of perspectives."

Sotomayor indeed praises the use of the judicial system to achieve egalitarian outcomes (with no noted consideration of individual rights), pointing out that "Justice Ginsburg, with other women attorneys, was instrumental in advocating and convincing the Court that equality of work required equality in terms and conditions of employment." In other words, employers and employees must not be left free to agree to terms of labor; employers have no right to control their resources; the federal government must step in and decide what constitutes "equal" work, pay, and conditions.

Not only do different people have different "logics," by Sotomayor's account, they may have different inborn psychologies, too, leading to her most controversial lines:

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. ... I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

As has been noted, the following variation of Sotomayor's line would be roundly and correctly condemned as racist: "A wise white man with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a Latina woman who hasn't lived that life." Yet for some reason we are expected to give Sotomayor a pass, and indeed place her on the highest court in the land to decide fundamental law.

Sotomayor does grant that "others of different experiences or backgrounds are [capable] of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group." The notion that varied experience in the courts is a good thing is defensible and not racist. The problem is that Sotomayor blends this view with the racist view that different people have inborn and inherently different logics (and therefore truths), as well as psychological dispositions. It is true that our experiences help make us who we are. Yet people of all experiences can come to understand the facts of a particular case and evaluate those facts by universal standards of justice. Thus, what truly matters is not diversity of experience, but the self-generated qualifications of the individuals under consideration.

Sotomayor does not fully commit herself to the racist, relativist view that she sometimes adopts. Instead, she mixes this view with the suppositions of universal justice. She promises "constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives."

It is precisely this mixing of incompatible views that poses a problem. If Sotomayor consistently upheld the racist strains of her ideas, she would be dismissed by everyone and never would have progressed in the judicial system. The problem is that, by allowing herself room to judge based on race and gender, rather than on the universal standards of justice, she threatens to sometimes rewrite the law as she sees fit, based on her own prejudices.

Sotomayor recognizes that "there is always a danger embedded in relative morality." We should take her seriously on this point and hesitate to send an avowed moral relativist to the Supreme Court.

Didden v. Village of Port Chester

How does Sotomayor's judicial relativism play out in practice? Here I'll mention three cases reviewed by others.

Richard Epstein takes issue with Sotomayor's reasoning in Didden v. Village of Port Chester of 2006:

Judge Sotomayor was on the panel that issued the unsigned opinion--one that makes Justice Stevens look like a paradigmatic defender of strong property rights.

I have written about Didden in Forbes. The case involved about as naked an abuse of government power as could be imagined. Bart Didden came up with an idea to build a pharmacy on land he owned in a redevelopment district in Port Chester over which the town of Port Chester had given Greg Wasser control. Wasser told Didden that he would approve the project only if Didden paid him $800,000 or gave him a partnership interest. The "or else" was that the land would be promptly condemned by the village, and Wasser would put up a pharmacy himself. Just that came to pass. But the Second Circuit panel on which Sotomayor sat did not raise an eyebrow. Its entire analysis reads as follows: "We agree with the district court that [Wasser's] voluntary attempt to resolve appellants' demands was neither an unconstitutional exaction in the form of extortion nor an equal protection violation." ...

Justice Stevens wrote that the public deliberations over a comprehensive land use plan is what saved the condemnation of Ms. Kelo's home from constitutional attack. Just that element was missing in the Village of Port Chester fiasco.

United States v. Toner

Dave Kopel takes a look at Sotomayor's language in a Second Amendment case. The details are more complex than I want to review here (see Kopel's complete write-up), but the upshot is that Sotomayor held that "the right to possess a gun is clearly not a fundamental right."

Kopel argues that this claim is without foundation, summarizing, "Judges Sotomayor, Pooler, and Katzman simply presumed--with no legal reasoning--that the right to arms is not a fundamental right."

Race-Based Promotions

Thomas Sowell summarizes a third case:

Looked at in the context of Judge Sotomayor's voting to dismiss the appeal of white firefighters who were denied the promotions they had earned by passing an exam, because not enough minorities passed that exam to create "diversity," her words in Berkeley seem to match her actions on the judicial bench in the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals all too well.

As is obvious from her own words and from her judicial decisions, Judge Sotomayor uses her race-based relativism as a pretext to promote her leftist agenda in court. We should expect her to continue that tactic if she rises to the Supreme Court.

Kim Pleasant: Whiner of the Day

I've decided to start issuing periodic "Whiner of the Day" awards. The first goes to Kim Pleasant, who shouted down Governor Bill Ritter yesterday. (I don't get many chances to defend Bill Ritter.)

Jessica Fender and Allison Sherry of the Denver Post recount the story:

About two dozen members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 crashed the Capitol gathering, standing watch in the back and shouting challenges to Ritter regarding his recent veto of House Bill 1170.

The bill would have made it easier for them to receive unemployment benefits if grocery-chain management locked them out of their work sites and potentially improved their standing in ongoing contract negotiations.

Ritter spoke to the protesters from the podium, saying "certainly my heart is with the people who have to put food on the table," but the state should not interfere with active labor disputes.

But his answers didn't satisfy Commerce City resident and Safe way worker Kim Pleasant, who shouted, "That is a lie! That is a lie!"

Ritter's veto of 1170 is one of the few things he's done right. If you're stupid enough to go on strike in the middle of a recession, when nearly one in ten people have lost their jobs and many more have taken pay cuts, the last thing you deserve is a tax subsidy for your stupidity. Just try to go on strike and see how much public sympathy you get.

The simple fact is that the typical job at the grocery store requires no special skills, training, or education. If you want a higher-paying job, then go back to school and work someplace else. But don't shout down the governor for protecting taxpayers (for once). At least wait till Ritter lies before calling him a liar.

So, Kim Pleasant, I'm pleased to name you the recipient of the first "Whiner of the Day" award. Please e-mail me your mailing address and I'll be happy to send you your award.

But don't take this as any indication that I'm pleased with Ritter's performance. While he did the right thing this one time, the general theme of his administration has been, "Screw the Taxpayer." Ritter has helped increase taxes or fees on vehicles, hospital visits, properties, sales, and so on.

As Fender and Sherry write, at the same event Ritter signed bills interfering in mortgages and offering more tax dollars for people not to work. Because, you know, during a recession we want to punish people who are working in order to incentivize others not to work.

I can hardly believe the incompetent and anti-freedom Republican Party left me no choice other than to vote for this sham of a governor.

Building Taxes: A Tale of Three Cities

Three different Colorado newspapers recently published stories about how three different cities are handling building taxes in this time of economic recession. The cities are Denver, Loveland, and Boulder.

The Denver Business Journal reports, "The city of Denver will offer free building permits through the first half of June for home-improvement projects as a way to encourage economy-boosting renovation work. ... Building-permit fees normally range from $20 to several thousand dollars, depending on the value of the project."

Did you get that? A building permit for a home-improvement project can cost you as much as several thousand dollars! The city is implicitly granting that these high fees (or taxes; the difference between those terms is increasingly meaningless) hurt economic development. For two weeks the city will stop screwing home owners. But what about the rest of the time?

Still, this is the best story from among our three cities.

The Fort Collins Coloradoan reports:

McWhinney, Loveland Commercial and other developers will ask the Loveland City Council on Tuesday for a 25 percent reduction of 10 permitting fees in hopes of stimulating building in the city.

The reduction would last 18 months and target the city's community expansion fees, commonly referred to as CEFs. The fees generate revenue for streets, parks, recreation, trails, open space, the public library, the museum, general government, fire protection and law enforcement, assistant city manager Rod Wensing said.

The CEFs together cost $11,339 for every residential building permit issued in the city of Loveland.

So Loveland may give home owners a slight break for a year and a half.

And Boulder? Surely the city is following suit and considering easing building taxes and fees? Of course not.

Boulder's Daily Camera blared the headline, "Taxes on new Boulder developments could skyrocket." The paper reports, "For more than a year, the council has been studying whether to replace the city's voter-approved excise tax structure with an impact-fee system that circumvents voter approval and raises the amounts charged on new development."

The new taxes would be used to fund government projects and "affordable housing." Because Boulder has made housing so expensive through its building controls that few can afford housing there. So obviously Boulder needs to charge higher taxes on housing in order to make it more affordable. During a recession. Huh.

The unsophisticated layperson unacquainted with higher Boulder logic might imagine that such taxes would make housing less affordable for some in order to give others a government handout.

It's the sort of plan that has given Boulder its national reputation.

DNA Bill: AP Ignores AP Report

On May 19, the Associated Press reported:

A Longmont man charged in the 1975 stabbing deaths of a Grand Junction mother and her daughter has been ordered to submit fingerprints, DNA and other identifying information as part of the police investigation into the case.

Mesa County District Judge Brian Flynn issued the order Friday for 64-year-old Jerry Nemnich. The order was made public on Monday.

Two days later, the Associated Press claimed, "Gov. Bill Ritter has signed a bill that would require anyone arrested for a felony to submit a DNA sample. ... Under the previous state law, only people who are convicted of crimes must submit DNA."

Apparently Associated Press writers neglect to read Associated Press news reports. It is obviously not the case that "under the previous state law, only people who are convicted of crimes must submit DNA." Under previous law, a judge could order DNA samples. You know, under the "due process" provision of the apparently superfluous Bill of Rights.

To date, nobody has seriously addressed my concern that the new law -- which I called "Bill 1984" for its Orwellian implications -- will encourage police and prosecutors to arrest and charge people just to get a look at their DNA.

That has not stopped Colorado Republicans from crowing about the new police-state law. On May 21, Owen Loftus issued a media release calling it a "GOP Bill," sponsored by Republicans Steve King and Scott Tipton. (Ritter is a Democrat and the former District Attorney for Denver.)

And State Senator Josh Penry, a leading potential candidate for governor, said in a separate release, "This is a big victory for the good guys. We know this bill will catch murderers, serial rapists and sexual predators who attack children. This legislation also underscores how members of both parties can come together to make Colorado safer -- and violent criminals, more accountable."

But what about the accountability of the police and prosecution, Josh? What about our fundamental rights to security of person and due process? What about the presumption of innocence?

When the police need not respect people's basic rights as they go about their job, that is not a "victory for the good guys." Instead, it blurs the line between good guys and bad, and it perverts the purpose of government from protecting rights to violating them.

This is an unpleasant reminder as to why I am not a Republican.