The Wonderful World of Commerce

Via Hit and Run.

Here are some snippets of the great post by Fafnir:

"Insolent pot!" says Giblets. "Be more vendible!"
"Giblets why are you yellin at that pot plant?" says me.
"Giblets is trying to turn it into commerce," says Giblets. "But buying and selling it is too much work. He wants it to be commerce NOOOOOWWW!"
"Silly Giblets, everything is commerce!" says me. "Let's step into this maaaagical schoolbus and we will learn all about Our World Of Commerce!"

***

When you hold a ball in the air it has POTENTIAL commerce. When you let it go the potential commerce turns into KINETIC commerce, which makes it faaaaalllllll through the air! It is caught by Congress or gravity.

***

A cat is in a box. According to quantum mechanics, it is neither bought nor sold. Instead it is a cat commerce waveform sold in all possible states at the same time until it is confiscated and destroyed by the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Cats.

***

To your left is the beautiful red-crested commerce with its unusual nesting activity and its colorful plumage. Up ahead is the Australian striped mock commerce, which is not commerce but uses its natural camouflage to imitate the markings of commerce and confuse predators.

***

This snowman is not commerce. But we can make him commerce with this ol top hat we found... and if we just believe! Now all the children of the world clap your hands an say together now: "I do believe in an expanded Commerce Clause, I do believe in an expanded Commerce Clause!"

More on the Marijuana Decision

Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune writes:

Under the Articles of Confederation, states could erect trade barriers to protect home industries from competitors in other states, to the detriment of national prosperity. So when the time came to draft a new Constitution, the delegates wanted to create a national free-trade zone. Hence they gave Congress authority to "regulate commerce ... among the several states."

That's "among," not "within." Clearly the feds had some latitude to address economic matters that affected two or more states, but not to police commercial activity confined to a single state.

***

Yet this Supreme Court managed to find excuses to rule against [Diane Monson]. Quoting from a 1942 decision, Justice John Paul Stevens insisted that even if an activity "is local and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce."

Oh? The Constitution grants Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce--not anything that affects interstate commerce. Still, it's absurd to think Monson's six plants could have even the slightest effect on the national market for marijuana.

So the court was driven to say that Congress not only has the power to regulate anything that might affect interstate commerce, it has the power to regulate anything that might affect anything that might affect interstate commerce. As dissenting Justice Clarence Thomas warned, "If the majority is to be taken seriously, the federal government may now regulate quilting bees, clothes drives and potluck suppers throughout the 50 states."

Yes, Mr. Madison, our federal government is one of a few defined powers--and a whole lot of undefined ones.

Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do is Online!

In html, which will make it easier to skip around and read the parts you find interesting, as Peter suggested.

The Federal Government vs. Liberty

My latest at the Partial Observer.

Excerpt:

But even during the awful years of the Cold War, one could say that aside from the draft (which is admittedly a pretty big "aside"), American society was far freer than it is now. Where were the "mandatory minimum" sentences? The drug tests? The speech codes on campus, or "sexual harassment" laws? How many were in federal prison for crimes that the Constitution left for the states to define and punish? How many were in federal prison even though they committed no crimes at all? Where were the security searches at airports? In how many places were you forced to show your driver's license and give out your Social Security number? How much of a political campaign was spent fundraising and trying to comply/get around onerous campaign finance laws? How many Americans saw their property taken from them because of a DEA raid? How many American military personnel were implicated in torture scandals? What was the size of the budget deficit?

Supreme Court Defiles Peter McWilliams' Corpse

Via August Ecklund, here is Rogier van Bakel's account of McWilliams' murder.

How We Wage the "War on Terror"

Posted at Indie Castle.

I Remember Liking Bush in 1999

"I believe each state can choose that decision as they so choose." - George W. Bush

The Constitution's Paradox

The outrage of Gonzalez v. Raich is not necessarily Constitutional, but rather moral; even if Scalia (to hell with Stevens and the other "liberal" fascists - I have zero regard for their opinion) has the better argument than O'Connor and Thomas, that just shows that the Constitution itself is defective. If it is indeed correct that the "commerce clause" and "necessary and proper clause" of the Constitution empowers the federal government to regulate what people grow and injest on their own property, then the Supreme Court isn't to blame for this decision. But, like the Mexican War, the Spanish-American War, and World War I, it shows that moral catastrophes can occur even under the authority of the Constitution. And that it isn't as great in protecting our rights as has been advertised. Heck, it even means that the rest of the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, didn't need to be written. "Necessary and proper" means "unlimited government." In this line of thought, the Constitution not only utterly failed to check tyranny in this case, but actually authorizes and affirms tyranny.

On the other hand, if O'Conner and Thomas are correct and the federal government's circumvention of state law in this case is unconstitutional, this is just further evidence that all three branches of government are operating outside and against the Constitution. Which makes officials of the federal government lawless tyrants, enemies of the American people.

Neither conclusion inspires much faith in our system of government, or hope for restoration and expansion of liberty.

Peter McWilliams

This column from nearly five years ago by William F. Buckley, Jr. angered me enough to say, "That's it. I'm voting Libertarian."

I will blog something every day about Peter McWilliams at least until June 14, the fifth anniversary of his death. His government not only let him down; his government murdered him. And this week the government let down the rest of us. Let's just hope no one else will suffer such a brutal fate.

Dick Durbin is a Sanctimonious Hypocrite

Today is the 40th anniversary of the Griswold v. Connecticut decision, in which the Supreme Court struck down a CT law that prohibited the sale of contraceptives.

Sen. Dick Durbin invoked Griswold when he took the floor of the Senate today to argue against federal appeals court nominee Janice Rogers Brown. Despite admitting that the "right to privacy" can not be found in the Constituiton, Durbin went on about religous intolerance, reproductive rights, state interference in morality, etc.

The core dishonesty is obvious. You can't exalt the privacy of the individual and wage a War on Drugs. You can't exalt the privacy of the individual and authorize the federal government unprecedented wire-tapping powers. You can't exalt the privacy of the individual and then force them to carry a national ID card to go anywhere. Where is the "religious tolerance" when much of our taxes are consumed in building government indoctrination centers for our children? What is Durbin's record on these issues?

The irony is that judges who are more likely to side with the state in Griswold, are also more likely to side with the individual in federal encroachments on liberty, as my previous two posts suggest. It is the conservatives who tried to put the breaks on tyranny in the Gonzalez v. Raich medical marijuana decision yesterday.

This is about power. All power must be located somewhere in the branches of the federal government, none in states or local communities - or individuals. This is Durbin's real philosophy.

As Sen. Brownback is saying right now, this is about enforcing what the Constitution has written, not what we wish is written.

I say this not out of defense of Justice Brown, with whom I'm unfamiliar. But the arguements for and against her make her look pretty good.

Conservatives v. Republicans

Supreme Court officially repeals Ninth and Tenth Amendments.

I do not believe you can applaud federal law and condemn medical marijuana users and still call yourself a conservative in any sense. I suspect many people on the right who do not sit in Congress are disappointed in this decision.

I will point out that two of the three dissenters were Rehnquist and Thomas, two parts of the three-headed monster (along with Scalia) that Senate Democrats have demonized in their filibuster against allegedly conservative judicial nominees. Yet it was the supposedly conservative Bush administration that argued against state's rights in this case. Is Bush nominating to the federal bench "real" conservatives who will uphold Constitutional limits even when it contradicts Bush Administration policy?

What a price to pay. Congressional Republicans, as loathesome a bunch as Congressional Democrats, want nothing but absolute power and will pass any law that pleases their religious base and "let the courts decide" constitutionality. All they want are federal judges who will reverse the abortion, sodomy, and prayer in school decisions, and then rubber stamp the federal police state.

I do not believe that normal conservatives are so fanatically anti-liberty as are the "conservatives" in Congress and the White House. I thought conservatives thought of themselves as pro-individual rights, and pro-state's rights. They will soon find out that, in supporting a President who says the right things about abortion and human life, they will lose every - and I mean every - other freedom.

Liberals v. Democrats

Supreme Court officially repeals Ninth and Tenth Amendments.

I do not believe you can applaud federal law and condemn medical marijuana users and still call yourself a liberal in any sense. I suspect most people on the Left who do not sit in Congress are disappointed in this decision.

I will point out that two of the three dissenters were Rehnquist and Thomas, two parts of the three-headed monster (along with Scalia) that Senate Democrats have demonized in their filibuster against allegedly conservative judicial nominees. Yet all four liberals - Souter, Breyer, Ginsburg, Stevens - voted for the federal fascism. (The moderates, Kennedy and O'Connor, were split.)

What a price to pay. Congressional Democrats, as loathesome a bunch as Congressional Republicans, want nothing but absolute power and have nothing but scorn for the concept of state's rights. All they want are federal judges who will uphold the abortion, sodomy, and prayer in school decisions, and then rubber stamp the federal police state.

I do not believe that normal liberals are so fanatically anti-state's rights as are the "liberals" in Congress and the Supreme Court. I thought liberals thought of themselves as pro-individual rights, as opposed to anti-state's rights. They will soon find out that, in advancing their pet causes of abortion, gay rights, and secularism, they will lose every - and I mean every - other freedom.

Revenge of the Sith Review

I finally saw Star Wars Episode III, and have posted some brief comments on it here.

You are more than welcome to post your review at the Partial Observer as well.

Believing (and Believing and Believing) in Bullion

This is what passes for information and analysis at the Old Bitch, or Grey Lady, or whatever it's called.

It addresses the pessimism of the "gold bugs" but doesn't actually address the argument for gold and against the Fed. That might actually invite critical thought and changed minds, at the expense of the soft-socialist agenda of the NYT.

Via LRC.

How Is Freedom Defined for a State?

Logan Ferree looks at the libertarian and Democratic potential of states.
It makes me wonder how can we define/measure freedom in a state. Here are some ideas:

1. The freedom of home schools and private schools.
2. Incarceration rates.
3. Tax burden
4. Regulatory environment for business
5. Gun laws
6. Percentage of all government expenditures (federal, state, local) as a percentage of state GDP.

These reflect a state's treatment of individuals, and also its adaptability to changing economic times. After all, an economy dependent on a workforce working for the government isn't all that free.

Let's Put Military Recruiters in Churches

Doug Newman on the recruiting shortage and the chickenhawks.


Unfortunately, Newman's suggestion doesn't sound so far-fetched. In a couple of years, I wouldn't be surprised if military recruiters in churches will actually be required, at least for tax-exempt churches.

More Moriarty

Okay, so he may be a nutball.

Any Presidential run would only be semi-serious at best, or he would probably have to change some of the rhetoric.

But it is refreshing to see a conservative still see communism, not "Islamo-fascism" as the real threat.

In any case, I liked him in the early, darker years of Law & Order.

Michael Moriarty '08

The actor is building a new party and wants to run for President on an anti-UN platform.


And is saying some good things:

The freest continent, North America, must conceive of itself as the home of 330 million individual nation-states.

I've lived my life with the certainty that, after God and Mother Earth, there is nothing more powerful in the universe than the free, unique and independent human being. History has been largely a record of the directions certain enlightened or benighted individuals have taken, followed by the multitudes later on.

***

Federalism necessitates the immediate transformation of individual humans into numbers and statistics. A worldwide federalist body such as the UN views the combined death tolls brought on by genocide and ethnic cleansing as a welcome reduction in the global population. The UN's stated intent is to encourage a drastic reduction in the population of the Third World. Even the UN's vaunted peacekeeping self-image has proven more of a psychological torture chamber for brave Canadian soldiers in Africa and the former Yugoslavia. The UN wasn't really interested in ending the slaughter, only in managing it. Lump this criminal neglect into the UN's other favorite euphemism -- population control -- and you have the smell of tyrannical indifference to life, liberty and freedom.

I'm building a third, hopefully mainstream political party: The Realists. A third point of view is an absolute necessity to deal with America's gradual absorption into socialism's hegemony. The only recent and healthy presidential debate was when independent candidate Ross Perot and his Reform Party were there to ask a few hard questions and make edifying observations, back in the 1992 and 1996 U.S. presidential campaigns.

The Democratic and Republican parties have neglected some of the major building blocks to freedom contained in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights. In forthcoming editorials, I will endeavor to show why and how a bipartisan power-sharing plan has been devised in order to enable the slow and barely discernible transformation of our American Republic into a socialist federation.

As for becoming a presidential candidate in 2008, yes, I will throw my hat into the ring. I'm well aware that the founders of third political parties always prove to be their creation's greatest liability when they run for the presidency, but I'm declaring my candidacy anyway and would appreciate help from serious conservatives reading this editorial and agreeing with the opinions stated therein.

Thoughts in the Presence of Fear

Wendell Berry on the state of the world and what to do about it.


Berry treats free trade, free markets, and technological innovation as if they were bad things. And I think he repeats dubious claims that no one but a tiny percent are prospering. I think that overall the entire population has been steadily prospering in some ways.

But the points against corporate power, war, and centralization are good. If he is speaking out not against real economic freedom but rather the fake "free markets" and "free trade" that is only as free as will empower governments and enrich corporations, then I like very much of what Berry says.

I believe many of these concerns are shared from the Green Left, the paleoconservative Right, and the libertarian bridge between the two.

The proper course is demilitarization, land value taxes, and the abolition of the federal reserve bank. Precisely the things the elite do not want.

Is Meritocracy Overrated? Or, Don't Call Me Mister

Vache Folle on social rank:

An Esquire is someone who is more than a gentleman but less than a knight. ...

Indeed, most lawyers are not even gentlemen. A gentlemen is properly understood as being an untitled member of the aristocracy and who, by virtue of his wealth, is not obliged to work for a living. Both independent means and high birth are required. I have neither; therefore, I am not a gentleman. There is no meritocratic way to become a gentleman, and there is no authority which can confer this honor upon one. You are born a gentleman (if you are), and you remain one until you somehow disgrace yourself.

I consider myself a yeoman, a tradesman of the middle class, and the scion of more or less respectable working men and women and small farmers. There is nothing to be despised in being a yeoman, and pretensions to more exalted rank show considerable disrespect for what is probably the most productive class in our society.

Failure to observe appropriate distinctions in rank also leads to the misassignment of roles to meritocratic pretenders that properly belong to the aristocracy. Where are our great men who ought to serve as statesmen and leaders in our communities? The usurpation of the roles of the aristocracy has allowed and encouraged the upper classes to evade their responsibilities. What man of quality would stand for Congress when that institution is populated by striving meritocrats and has become a den of corruption and thievery? What man of quality would accept a commission in the armed forces when commissions can be had by anyone and when service has become a job?

So, don't call me Esquire or even Mister. Just call me by my given name. Respect me if I am respectable for who I am, not for what I might pretend to be.

Nancy Pelosi, Too

Justin Raimondo writes,

Not content to quash an attempt to get us out of the present quagmire, Pelosi is eager to jump into another one, this time in Iran: she has signed on as a co-sponsor of legislation introduced by Republican warmonger and presidential aspirant Rick Santorum (and the distinctly dubious Ileana Ros-Lehtinen) to impose sanctions on Tehran and take a higher profile against the Iranian government – the same beating of the war drums that was the legislative prelude to Operation Iraqi Freedom.

....

She also went Sharon one better by describing the withdrawal of U.S.-subsidized (and, to a large degree, U.S.-born) "settlers" from Gaza as "gut-wrenching." As for the idea that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has anything to do with the occupation – this is "absolute nonsense." It's all about "the fundamental right of Israel to exist."

Occupation? What occupation? Never mind how "gut-wrenching" it must be to stand and watch as "settlers" steal your land, bulldozers destroy your home, and helicopter gunships made in the good ol' USA gun down your children – it's all about Israel's "right to exist" as an inflamed and dangerously infected carbuncle on the Middle Eastern body politic.

Pelosi wants to impose economic sanctions on Iran because the Iranians aspire to what the Israelis already have: but don't talk to her about Tel Aviv's nukes, or whether sanctions ought to be imposed on a nation that refuses to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It's all about Israel's "right to exist" as the undisputed hegemon of the region.

In a democracy, the people rule – and if you believe that, I'd like to have some of whatever it is you're smoking. Okay, so we know it's a sham, but what I find ominous is that, even granted the "democratic" principle, it seems to be malfunctioning in a spectacularly conspicuous manner. "Antiwar" San Francisco consistently sends a vicious warmonger to Congress, almost without opposition. The same is true, to a less pronounced degree, on the national level: most Americans, according to polls, oppose the Iraq war and want out as soon as possible. Yet our representatives in Congress won't hear of it – indeed, they're already busy ginning up another war.

Gilda Jacobs is What is Wrong With America

Legislation forcing theatres to post the "real" start times of movies?

Sheesh, lady. If you don't like the ads, don't sit through them. There are two possible reasons why ads are run in movie theaters. The first is, for extra profit. The second (like the expensive food prices) is because this is a needed revenue stream to keep the theatre going.

Neither reason is criminal, but actual criminality or wrongdoing has never stopped our busy-body legislators before.

No doubt this petty tyrant will find herself in Congress someday, where she'll probably legislate on easier ways to get the last remaining toothpaste out of the tube.

Theonomy isn't Statist Theocracy

I hope even atheist readers of this blog will appreciate this from Calvinist pastor Douglas Wilson. He founded the modern classical Christian school movement, edits (and writes a lot of) Credenda/Agenda, and basically founded a new denomination. Think Murray Rothbard with religion, and you get this guy's breadth, depth, and talent. He's been caught in the unfortunate entanglement of the "Christian Reconstructionist" movement, of which his ideas are often similar, and the maniacal and politicized "Religious Right" who vote for and make ridiculous excuses for the small-minded tyrant in the White House.

Anyway, here's a (large) excerpt of his reply to the latest charges against him:

A crime is identified in the Bible by the presence of an attendant civil penalty. Lust is a sin, but not a crime. Greed is a sin, but not a crime. Drunkenness in the Bible is a sin, but not a crime. Reasoning by analogy, drunk driving that injures someone else would be a crime. But all this is assuming a utopian biblical society, which does not at present exist.

So in our democratic and secular society, whenever we talk about sins and crimes, if we are thinking carefully, we have to ask ourselves, by what standard? How do we define a sin? How do we define a crime? And because we live in a town where some of our Intoleristas are hyperventilating about the looming prospect of living in a theocratic state set up by old yours truly, I need to spend a few minutes to allay some of their concerns (and perhaps to inflame others).

Theonomy is a word that simply refers to God's law. In the minds of many, this is nothing more than the Christian equivalent of Muslim law, which is (for various reasons) not really an accurate comparison. But over the years I have been asked a number of times if I am a theonomist. To which I have consistently replied, "Oh no, I hate God's law." And the point of that kind of reply is to show that every Christian who believes the Bible is some kind of theonomist. The only debates we Christians have are exegetical: "What does God want from us?" and not "Should we do wantever it is God wants?" Even a muddled Christian who argues for some form of what he calls "principled pluralism" can be asked if he thinks that this principled pluralism is what God wants as well. If not, then why does he want it? And if so, then isn't principled pluralism just another form of theonomy?

Every state is inescapably theocratic. Every state is theonomic. The thing that separates one state from another is the name of the god, the identity of the theos involved. In some societies it is Allah. In others (like ours) it is Demos. In yet others, it is still (nominally) Christ, as in the United Kingdom. Now, as a Christian, when a pollster comes and asks me for my input on which god we should serve, I will tell him. And here is a little hint: it won't be a god in whom I do not believe. If given an opportunity to say something about it, I would prefer the laws of the civil societry in which I live to reflect the standards of God as set forth in the (entire) Bible, and my desire is for Jesus Christ to be honored in the public square as the Son of God and Savior of the world. Of course I think this. I am a Christian.

Now as soon as I say this, the immediate response of panic will be to say, "See! They do want to take over!" No, not at all. If by "taking over" you mean a political mobilization and coercive manipulation of the current system to force our way in, we want nothing to do with that. We do want to persuade, and we want that persuasion to be the opposite of coercive. People think that Jesus Christ will be coercive because the current god is so coercive. Behold the god that is currently the Demos-cratic Theos-Cratic god of our system. His middle name is Coercion, and what we are doing is refusing to worship in that shrine anymore.

Live and Let Live

My latest at the Partial Observer.

Things I'd like to hear from a politician running for office.

Indie Castle Plug

I have been invited by Kevin to participate at
Indie Castle, a spot for independent voters. I will contribute there fairly regularly, and alert readers here when I post there, but the bulk of my blogging will be right here.

Book Tag

Everybody else is doing it, so why not me? I was tagged by the Critter to answer these questions:

# of Books I own:

Scores. Even hundreds. Not thousands. The number I really care about keeping is probably around 100. I've never been much of a fiction reader, so that keeps down the number.

Last book I bought:

Flow:The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. 50 cents used.

Last book I read:

They Also Ran by Irving Stone. Profiles of men defeated fro the Presidency from Henry Clay through 1940's Wendell Wilkie (published in 1943).

Five Books That Mean A Lot to Me:

1. The Sneetches and Other Stories by Dr. Sseuss. Parables on the evils of group identity.
2. The Last Days According to Jesus by R.C. Sproul. An introduction to "preterism," the belief that all of the New Testament's prophesies about "the last days" were fulfilled with the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. Places the entire meaning and purpose of the NT's writers in a new and, I believe, more accurate context.
3. For the New Intellectual by Ayn Rand. A summary of her philosophy largely through excerpts from her novels. Very powerful and inspiring stuff.
4. Dr. Deming: The American Who Taught the Japanese About Quality by Rafael Aguayo. A critique of "management by objectives" and systems of reward/punishment within a business. Most often, it is the system and the procedures that are in error, not the people following them.
5. Discourses on Livy by Niccolo Machiavelli. One of my great frustrations with the State is that even when politicians think they're being "pragmatic," they are still imbicilic. Machiavelli provides the real deal, including saying that its better for a country to lose her honor or credibility, then it is to lose her life.

The last question is to "tag" five other bloggers so that they answer these questions:

1. Steve (absit invidia)
2. Dr. Lenny
3. Vache Folle
4. Mike Tuggle
5. Matthew Bryan

Ex-FBI official: I'm 'Deep Throat'

Rats. I had 3 grand on Bill Casey.

Anyway, this is a good reminder of the necessity of protecting sources. If reporters are made aware of wrongdoing on the part of the government before the government's own investigators do, that just goes to show another place where the free market is superior to government.

The Great Oak Forest

Bits of wisdom from August Ecklund's new blog:

I have had the opportunity to speak with many parents of soldiers fighting in Iraq. Often, the story is the same. Their children reenlist out of loyalty and a sense of responsibility to their fellow soldiers. They cannot bear the thought of allowing their colleagues to risk their lives alone, so they run off to kill and/or be killed. These men and women have honorable intentions, which is why they are perfect victims of the State. The true evil of the State is that it turns people’s virtues against them.

---

Historically, forests, mountains, and other geographic boundaries protected small villages and cultures from incursion. These civilizations maintained their liberty through isolation. As I have grown older, I have begun to fear that finding isolation is the only way to gain liberty.

France Rejects EU Treaty; Europe Faces Crisis

The people of France do the right thing.

Economic integration through free trade is a blessing; political centralization - including economic regulation - of diverse groups can not and will not work.

Why a people would ever surrender control of their borders and security to distant entities and foreign peoples is beyond me. I hope this is the "beginning of the end" of Europe as a political concept and the beginning of a truly free and peaceful Europe.

It Must Be the Church Water

Time for some good ol' Bushwhacking by Christian libertarian Doug Newman.

Doug says of the double standards many Christians adopt when defending Bush: "I don't get it. I just don't get it."

I suppose it's a hatred of "liberals" that is greater than a love for peace, liberty, or principle.