It looks obvious

I often rant about the fact that the American left hijacked the term Liberalism. Associating the left with ideas of Liberty and Human Rights was smart in terms of PR but has very little to do with reality. The fact is that the left commitment for Human Rights and Liberty is limited, although pretty vocal, to those issues were it is aligning with its real agenda and easily suspended when it is not.

My weekend reading provided me with two clear examples.

Forget the criticism about Bush suspending Human Rights and constituently protected rights in face of terrorism threat. Here is a suggestion to ignore the public opinion, or any real debate and enforce clean air legislation in non-democratic fashion:

Real disadvantage: public deliberation

One doesn’t want to be sentimental, but there is something to the argument that shift of this significance should be discussed in public and shaped by the public’s elected representatives. It would be nice, in an ideal world, if reasoned debate and discussion and interest-balancing yielded the perfect program.

But in this world, we’re perilously late getting underway and Obama must weigh America’s procedural ideals against what a wise man once called the “fierce urgency of now.” Whatever it’s other merits, the Clean Air Act is now.

One might argue that the above suggestion is not typical and somewhat extreme. However I tend to agree with George Will’s analysis, discussing the “fairness doctrine” (Which is, by the way, another use of newspeak.), about the underline suppression of opposing ideas:

Reactionary liberalism, the ideology of many Democrats, holds that inconvenient rights, such as secret ballots in unionization elections, should be repealed; that existing failures, such as GM, should be preserved; and, with special perversity, that repealed mistakes, such as the “fairness doctrine,” should be repeated. That Orwellian name was designed to disguise the doctrine’s use as the government’s instrument for preventing fair competition in the broadcasting of political commentary.

Because liberals have been even less successful in competing with conservatives on talk radio than Detroit has been in competing with its rivals, liberals are seeking intellectual protectionism in the form of regulations that suppress ideological rivals. If liberals advertise their illiberalism by reimposing the fairness doctrine, the Supreme Court might revisit its 1969 ruling that the fairness doctrine is constitutional. The court probably would dismay reactionary liberals by reversing that decision on the ground that the world has changed vastly, pertinently and for the better.

[...]

If reactionary liberals, unsatisfied with dominating the mainstream media, academia and Hollywood, were competitive on talk radio, they would be uninterested in reviving the fairness doctrine. Having so sullied liberalism’s name that they have taken to calling themselves progressives, liberals are now ruining the reputation of reactionaries, which really is unfair.

If I to choose one single thing from the new administration’s agenda that is the most dangerous to our civil liberties, and most harmful to the American dream, it will not be the fundamentally unchanged strategy in Iraq, nor his economic plans and not even the fact that I am pretty reluctant to believe that Obama will restore the balance in the government and enforce restriction on his own administration. For me the single, most dangerous, agenda item is the fact that this administration will act to institute slave labor.

Obviously nobody will call it that, that why we have newspeak! They will call it National Service and Mandatory Volunteerism (Despite the internal logic failure of such horrible term). But despite their best efforts the propaganda campaign cannot change the meaning of the plan to institute national slave labor.

This is radical change from the basic believe that the just government should protect human rights and in its core is the view that the individual is only free at the mercy of the ruler and is subject to service its master (The noble feudal, the virtual collective or what ever form the government is). It is ironic that the first African American President - a significant milestone in the process of establishing equal rights for everybody - will be the one that will act against the 13th amendment:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

There is one theme rising above all others in this election cycle that really worries me. It isn’t the prospect of higher taxes and it isn’t the likelihood of the continuos irrational foreign policy and the complete blindness in the way we confront the radical terrorism and it isn’t the fear of deep recession. The issue that really makes me worried is the new call for national service and the notion that both, McCain and Obama, will welcome such development.

Don’t mistake the calls for national service with campaign populism, it isn’t. It is rooted deeply in both candidates core ideology and it is pushed by very broad and influential organizations. Wrap in a package of highly ideological and promises organizations, like the Time Magazine, lobbying , and preparing the public opinion, for enslaving broad portion of the population.

It is a unique moment for the idea of national service. You have two presidential candidates who believe deeply in service and who have made it part of their core message to voters. You have millions of Americans who are yearning to be more involved in the world and in their communities. You have corporations and businesses that are making civic engagement a key part of their mission.

Last September, our cover story “The Case for National Service” caused an outpouring of interest in and support for citizen service across the country. This year, in addition to publishing another issue on the idea of service, we are convening–along with the Carnegie Corporation of New York and with presenters AARP and Target–a national bipartisan summit in New York City that will bring together hundreds of leading Americans to plan and lay out a bold blueprint on citizen service. The event will start on the evening of Sept. 11–that solemn anniversary seemed an appropriate time to launch this effort–and the meeting itself will occur the next day, Sept. 12. The summit will also be the first major public event for ServiceNation, a national campaign of more than 100 organizations–ranging from AARP to the National Council of La Raza and Habitat for Humanity–that collectively represent some 100 million Americans. My co-chairs at the summit will be Alma Powell, Caroline Kennedy, Carnegie president Vartan Gregorian and AARP CEO Bill Novelli. The summit will be opened by New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg, who himself is an exemplar of citizen service, and will be closed by California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is the first governor to create a cabinet post to oversee service and volunteering.

The great American promise to protect “Life Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness” is being in direct attack since national service is neither life and liberty nor the pursuit of happiness. In a big push to eradicate the American promise those organization calling for to transform the American society to a big labour camp with forced labor prisoners as a condition for citizenship, which is their right by nature.

There is one hope, however, that despite the growing popularity and the willingness of many americans to put their head under the harness of slavery this idea will not pass. The only hope is that the supreme court will not allow legislation that is, by its nature, in direct contradiction to the 13th amendment:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

I always thought that terror organizations are pretty small - few hundred members at most. Even if we will count in obvious guerilla organizations the number would not increase significantly. Therefore I’m somewhat skeptical about the accuracy of the FBI terrorist watch list. If the number stated by the ACLU is correct the list seems to be a little bit to inclusive and not so efficient about who should the FBI really watch. I also wonder about the resources needed to effectively maintain a list of million suspects - including intelligence gathering.

I wonder what were the criteria used to add someone to the list - was it an inelegance report, hard evidence or the fact that someone name is Ahmed or Osama was sufficient…

The nation’s terrorist watch list has hit one million names, according to a tally maintained by the American Civil Liberties Union based upon the government’s own reported numbers for the size of the list.

[...]

“America’s new million record watch list is a perfect symbol for what’s wrong with this administration’s approach to security: it’s unfair, out-of-control, a waste of resources, treats the rights of the innocent as an afterthought, and is a very real impediment in the lives of millions of travelers in this country,” said Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU Technology and Liberty Program. “It must be fixed without delay.”

This is a very good post, on the issue that become more worrisome this election:

Which brings us to a wider point, which is that I do not like the idea of service to the nation or to the community being equivocated with service to the government or through the government. Putting aside the specifics of which services will count, I don’t want the State adjudicating what helps society in general. I don’t need Fearless Leader directing brigades of Citizen Junior Workers to enact his Grand Vision. The State already spends enough of my money telling me that they know better than I do how I should be spending the rest of my money and my time. I don’t want to put great swaths of extra time at their disposal to start deciding what should be done with it. The less labor, and fruits of labor, central planners have to work with, the better.

Finally, I can’t help but think these plans also feed off the perniciousness of the same anti-profit sentiments discussed by Roberts and Munger on this week’s EconTalk. There’s a common disposition in a large swaths of society that making a profit on something is greedy, conducting commerce is crass and that if you’re making money then someone, somewhere, must be loosing money. This Bobo, zero-sum, anti-Protestant-work-ethic is the second pillar of this drive for national servitude, along with the aforementioned ageism. Put politely, this view is fallacious. Put more directly, I have seen more cogent points of view encapsulated in the Tupperware containers that have been pushed to the back of my fridge and left to fester for weeks.

When I think about the issue of compulsory volunteering, as the writer of post nicely called it, boil down to the question of who we are putting in the center: the collective or the individual. The questions of efficiency, although conveniently serving my point, are less important to me. In other words, even if the observations will suggest that subjecting the individual to the needs of the collective generate better economical results for the collective, I would still be against it. However both, the efficiency and the moral question, tend to generate the same answer - enslaving people is wrong morally and is bad practice.

(Via Cafe Hayek) 

The supreme Court affirmed today the firearm ban was unconstitutional infringement of the second amendment. The court position that the right to bear arms is an individual right, and is not limited to service in the militia, and that using of the weapon in self-defense within the home are very encouraging:

1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.

I still think that the government, as the monopoly on the mean of legal coercion, should be able to ban firearms, but it should be done through an amendment to the constitution not by ignoring it.

Three years ago, on June 23rd, the US Supreme court ruled in favor of the city of New London,Connecticut in a case of eminent domain. The decision effect is that cities all over the US are within their constitutional authority to use the power of eminent domain to take one’s property and transfer it to a corporations that will develop it.

Suzette Kelo and The institute for Justice, which I mentioned before and that represented Kelo in this case, marking the day and set a general fund raising to fight other cases of eminent domain:

On this, the third anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s dreadful decision, I’m asking for 10,000 people to join me in donating to the non-profit legal foundation that stood by me all the way to the Supreme Court, and continues to stand by heroic individuals fighting to keep the homes that are rightfully theirs.

Eminent Domain abuse continues coast-to-coast! Despite tremendous gains in state courts and state legislatures since the Supreme Court’s ruling, eminent domain abuse is still rampant. Click on the links below to read more.

Eminent Domain is an evil and abusive way to takes one property against one will and never for fair price, since a fair price can only be determine by voluntary agreement. It is an abuse of government power to serve the interest of the few, under the horrible slogan of the “The Greater Good”. Small donation for the Institute for Justice on June 23rd, will be small, but important, step fighting it.

This short video is a good example for the difference between bad choices, or at least odd one, and illegal choice. The fact that we might not approve of the practice of throwing babies from hight doesn’t make it illegal. Since there is no physical abuse the practice is, and should be, legal. On the other hand — the fact that something is legal doesn’t make it desirable - and people can, and should, try to persuade parents to stop such practices. 

(Via LRC)

If I was a Canadian I would be worry to learn what Human Rights Commissioner views are on ,hmmmm, Human rights:

In fact, for an organization that is supposed to promote “human rights,” the HRC’s agents seem curiously oblivious to basic aspects of constitutional law. In one famous exchange during the Lemire case, Steacy was asked “What value do you give freedom of speech when you investigate?” — to which he replied “Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value.” (I guess Section 2 has been excised from his copy of the Canadian Charter of Rights.)

Privacy is another concept that the HRC seems to find confusing. The most scandalous disclosure to emerge on Tuesday involved the manner by which investigators logged on to Lemire’s Web site. In what appears to be a ham-fisted attempt to avoid revealing the commission’s IP address, they allegedly tapped into the unsecured wi-firouter of a 26-year-old Ottawa woman who lived near the commission’s 344 Slater St. headquarters. At Tuesday’s hearing, a Bell Canada employee read out the woman’s name, address and phone number to shocked audience members. A National Post reporter contacted the woman and found that she’d never heard of Lemire, Steacy, or his investigations. Unless she is secretly working undercover for Steacy, or the HRC is somehow correct in its argument that the allegation is nonsense, it appears that the commission cynically invaded the privacy of an innocent citizen in order to pursue an obscure Web-trawling vendetta; and then caused her name to be read out to the Canadian public, thereby identifying her as an unwitting conduit to neo-Nazi Web sites. One likes to imagine that the privacy commissioner will be having a chat with Dean et al. in coming days.

(emphasizes are mine)

(h/t The Liberty Papers)

You don’t need to be as extremist as I am, to see the problem with this court ruling:

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided Thursday that a website may be found liable for violating fair housing laws by matching roommates according to gender, sexual orientation and parenthood.

Federal law protecting websites “was not meant to create a lawless, no-man’s land on the Internet,” the court in San Francisco said in an 8-3 ruling.

The judges said a site called Roommates.com may be brought to trial for possibly violating anti-discrimination laws because it requires users to provide information about gender, sexual orientation and whether they have children, and then uses the information to screen people for matches.

“A real estate broker may not inquire as to the race of a prospective buyer, and an employer may not inquire as to the religion of a prospective employee,” Chief Judge Alex Kozinski wrote for the majority. “If such questions are unlawful when posed face-to-face by telephone, they don’t magically become lawful when asked electronically online.”

Choosing a roommate is by nature a discriminatory act - we are choosing who we are going to live with, to share our apartment or home with, based on completely subjective criteria. Some of these criteria might involve gender, sexual orientation, race or religion - all of them are fine criteria because we are going to live together.

Ruling that a business that should provide people efficient tools to find suitable roommates that it cannot provide the necessary tools is a death sentence to this business. But worse than that is the fact that the court ruling saying that our freedom of association, in our own houses, is not protected.

It is often said that the slippery slope is not a valid argument, but this is perfect demonstration of slippery slope - it started with telling business owners that they don’t have the freedom of choose who they are hiring than it become illegal to select your neighbors and now one cannot decide who she doesn’t want to share her apartment with. What next? non-discriminatory dating and match making services?