Civil Disobedience

If this amendment passes I'm taking a trip to DC to burn some flags. You're welcome to come along.

In Other News

The House of Representatives recently approved a $409 billion military budget for the next fiscal year. This figure doesn’t include supplemental funding for “Operation: Iraqi Freedom”, which has run about $300 billion over the last 3 years.

Including the expense of the Iraq war, over the last three fiscal years the Department of Defense has spent $1.45 trillion, or $480 billion/year. Given that the average civilian labor force over the same time period was 139 million people, the government takes $3470/year out of the average pay check for the purpose of killing people. If your family makes the median income, $1.66 per hour of work goes towards feeding the war machine.

What? You didn't want to spend that much on killing people? That's called democracy.

While We're on the Subject

Cato also has a piece up about African poverty, here.

The Miseducation of a Nation

Linda Schrock asks:

"Why are we not providing the children of today with rapid opportunities to become successful readers? Why aren't the children of today, with all of the technology and resources now available, learning to read faster and better than the children of the late 1700's and early 1800's?"

My answer: because education is a state monopoly. Schools have no incentive to improve. In the private sector, companies constantly try to better each other in order to gain market share. A private firm that falls behind quickly finds its former customers in the arms of its competitors. Meanwhile, parents are forced to pay for public schools, whether they are satisfied with the product or not. Public schools are actually better off if parents are dissatisfied with the product. The public school bureaucrats still get tax dollars from the families of home schooled and privately educated children, but they don't have to pay out the expense of "educating" them.

Those industries that have managed to stay out of state control have advanced quite a good deal since the late 1700's (think: horse and buggy vs. Lexus RX Hybrid). Meanwhile, government schools have actually managed to regress over the past 250 years.

By the way, I thoroughly suggest thumbing through the Linda Schrock archives on LewRockwell.com for an inside view on the state educational system. You'll be as horrified as I am at the prospect of leaving your child's development in the hands of leviathan.

Poverty and Government

Why is Africa so poor? Natural climate conditions? Exploitation by richer, whiter countries? A history of colonization? AIDS?

Or maybe, just maybe, it is the fault of Socialist, Kleptocratic, and Totalitarian governments.

FaF!

Fafnir answers critics who complain about the United States' treatment of prisoners.

Hey, we're not as bad as Satan. Those whining whiners need to stop whining.

Amazon's missing out on revenue

I was at Border's book store today searching through a massive array of look-alike books on PHP and MySQL programming. After an hour I finally selected a volume based on a five minute thumb-through, a pretty cover, and a gut feeling. How I wished I had Amazon.com's handy-dandy customer review database there to guide my decision! Then I could look for a book that had an average four star review or better, read through the editorial description, and make my choice.

Amazon.com has a valuable asset in the thousands of reader's reviews they store on their website. Why not make some money by leasing the information out to bricks-and-mortar stores? Most such book stores already have computer terminals spread around that allow customers to search the available inventory. Why not also give those customers access to an easily searchable index of Amazon's customer reviews?

Cool Stuff

The reason I put these guys in my blogroll is because I get tired of linking to them all the time.

Fafblog! has the best discussion of the commerce clause.

The Agitator takes "it" to a law professor.

In Defense of Advertising

Advertising is a part of capitalist culture that is much maligned. TV Commercials interrupt our favorite shows. Spam mail fills our email inboxes. Pop-up ads and banners slow down our favorite websites. Crazy hippie leftists complain that advertising causes materialism and drives a damaging workaholic consumer culture.

Even among the society of economists, the usual refuge of the weird and the outcast, advertising gets a bad rap. They call it “rent-seeking” or “an unproductive use of resources”. They insist we’d all be better off without it. Advertising doesn’t create wealth, it merely causes wealth to be shuffled around. In the process real resources are expended, resulting in a net loss to society. Even such libertarian-leaning luminaries such as John Lott and Gordon Tullock have spoken negatively of advertising.

The consensus on advertising is clear: the vile creature should be hung from the yardarm, as soon as the nearest ship with a yardarm is found! But, as often happens, the consensus is wrong. Advertising in itself is not a useful activity, but it has many positive side effects. It is a vitally important means of funding public goods on the free market.

If we transported a mainstream economist to a world that never had broadcast radio, he would claim that the medium could never exist without government funding. Once a radio signal is broadcast there is no means to force listeners to pay for it. A consumer cannot be prevented from listening if he refuses to pay; the signal must be provided for everyone in a given area or for noone. But in the real world advertising, which the mainstream economist rejects, is the magic ingredient. Instead of charging consumers for listening, producers of radio charge advertisers for access to their listener base. While the economist predicts “market failure” and an absence of radio, consumers are presented with dozens of radio stations to choose from, all free of charge.

Advertising is the force behind free radio, free television, and free periodicals like “The Onion”. Advertising is the reason local newspapers are sold for less than the cost of the paper they’re printed on. Advertising lowers the cost of magazine subscriptions. Most importantly, advertising is the driving force behind the information age. If I want to know the name of the band that wrote “Unchained Melody” Google will give me the answer in about 15 seconds with no charge. Why does Google do this for me? Is it just because they're swell chums up there at the Googleplex? Nope. Google gets paid by the few small ads they place at the top of my search results.

So put down that gun and back away from the marketing executive! Advertising is an important part of a free economy.

Update on Raich

Radley Balko issues a call to action in wake of the Raich decision.

I hate begging for favors from the very ones who oppress us. My preferred reaction would be a few shotguns waved in a few DEA agents' faces (Does it say something about our country that I was afraid to write that last sentence, lest DHS harass me?). But hey, every little bit counts.

Write your goddamned congressman. I'm gonna write mine.

In Summary

I may not like what you smoke, but I'll defend to the death your right to smoke it!

A Sad Day For Liberty

"The opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not… would make the judiciary a despotic branch."
--Thomas Jefferson

"The Constitution...is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please."
--Thomas Jefferson

“John Ashcroft you should give up now! I am not going to give up my life to you or for you. I will fight you all the way to the Supreme Court if I have to. I promised my children I would do everything I have to stay alive so I can be here for them, even if it takes my very last breath. I am asking you to PLEASE STOP TRYING TO KILL ME.”
--Angel Raich

The Supreme Court reached a tragic decision today.

Mrs. Angel Raich, the mother of two, is a very ill woman (read her story). She suffers from an inoperable brain tumor, a life-threatening wasting syndrome, chronic pain disorders, a seizure disorder, nausea, Scoliosis, TMJ, Endometriosis, a Uterine tumor, and many other documented medical conditions. Medical treatment for Mrs. Raich is complicated by the fact that she is violently allergic to many medications. In 1996 her disorders confined her to a wheelchair. She lived in constant pain. Her son and daughter, ages 8 and 10 at the time, suffered almost as much as she did.

But the tide began to turn in 1996 when California voters approved a state-wide referendum allowing marijuana use with a doctor’s prescription. In 1997, one of Angel’s doctors recommended medical marijuana to her. It was a godsend. Marijuana helped to control the pain and nausea that plagued her. By 1999 she had regained control of her partially paralyzed right side and was able to leave her wheel chair for the first time in three years.

As a result of marijuana, Angel’s life was made livable. Her kids got their mama back. After long years of deepening misery, things were finally getting better for the Raich family.

Enter leviathan.

Although medical marijuana use is legal under California law, it is illegal under the federal Controlled Substances act. Marijuana is listed as a “schedule I” substance under the act, meaning it is deemed a strictly forbidden dangerous substance with no possible medicinal use despite gobs of evidence to the contrary. In 2002, federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents conducted a sting operation, raiding the gardens of medical marijuana patients in California. The agents destroyed the patients' marijuana plants and confiscating their land and property. Deathly ill people were handcuffed and led away by gun toting strongmen.

Angel Raich saw what was happening and refused to give up the one thing that had given her and her family hope. In response to a DEA raid, Angel sued. Her case came all the way to the Supreme Court.

The ethical course for the Supreme Court was clear. People have the right to control what they put in their own bodies. This is especially true when the substances they choose to put in their bodies are responsible for keeping them alive. To stop Angel Raich from using marijuana would be tantamount to murder.

However, the United States is a nation of laws, not a nation of ethics. Ethical standards can vary from person to person, but laws give us an objective, predictable way of ordering society. To decide the fate of Angel Raich, the men and women of the Supreme Court would have to consult the nation's laws.

I must admit my ignorance in this realm. I’m not a lawyer, so when I read words I think they mean what they say. A good summary of the facts and legal issues from a lawyer's perspective can be found here.

The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of our nation. The 10th amendment to the Constitution simply states that any power not explicitly given to the federal government earlier in the document is reserved to the states. To me, this amendment is clear and easy to understand. If the Constitution doesn’t say that the feds can do something, that means they can’t.

As I don’t recall anything in the Constitution that says that some parts count while other parts don’t, this amendment should mean that the federal government does not have the power to control or ban any substance. Twelve states have passed laws permitting the use of medical marijuana since 1996, and state law should take precedence.

Lawyers call this idea the doctrine of “enumerated powers”. The people who wrote and ratified our constitution thought the doctrine was a sensible and vitally important check on the abuse of federal power. Nowadays, anyone that believes in the doctrine of enumerated powers is considered a right wing crackpot.

The doctrine of enumerated powers may be clearly written into our constitution, but in practice it doesn’t matter what the Constitution says. It matters what the Supreme Court says it means.

The clause which undid the doctrine of enumerated powers can be found in article I, section 8 of the US Constitution. It says that congress has the power to regulate “interstate commerce”. To any student of history, the purpose of this clause is obvious. The writers of the Constitution wanted to ensure that states couldn’t pass tariff laws against each other. They wanted to ensure the free flow of people and goods across state borders, something that had been lacking in the Articles of Confederation, their previous attempt at forming a national government.

During the administration of FDR, the Supreme Court interpreted the interstate commerce clause to give wide power to the federal government. In the 1942 case Wickard v. Filburn they found that the interstate commerce clause gave the federal government the power to regulate how much wheat a farmer grew on his own land for his own personal consumption, even if it were never transported across state lines, or even outside his farm for that matter. Their reasoning was that some wheat was sold in interstate markets, so his activities did effect interstate commerce.

If this reasoning sounds a bit convoluted to an ordinary man like myself, that’s because it is. The Supreme Court’s decision wasn’t based in logic or the rule of law, but in furthering the political agenda of Franklin Roosevelt. Since that time, the 10th amendment has been essentially dead. The federal government can do just about anything it wants and appeal to the interstate commerce clause to justify its actions.

In the 1920’s, before the reign of FDR, alcohol prohibitionists had to pass an amendment to the constitution to create a federal ban on the substance. The law did not change between 1920 and 1970, but suddenly no constitutional amendment was necessary. Thanks to the Supreme Court's interpretation of the interstate commerce clause, congress’s power had become nearly unlimited. It passed the Controlled Substances Act, banning marijuana and other substances.

With Angel Raich’s lawsuit, the Supreme Court had an opportunity to curtail the abuse of federal power by ruling that growing marijuana for private use is not governed by a reasonable interpretation of the interstate commerce clause.

But the justices -a poor name for such men- sided against Angel Raich in a 6-3 decision today. Like the FDR court, their decision is motivated by a political agenda and neither reason nor compassion.

The responsibility for the pain, suffering, and even death of thousands of people rests with the federal government for prosecuting their insane War on Drugs. The federal government has extended the War on Drugs into a War on Sick People and Their Doctors.

Angel Raich is a brave person for standing up to the federal Leviathan. May more people join her in legal and physical resistance to the growing tyranny of the lawless American police state.

Update

Radley Balko has some great commentary on this case including this gem from the dissenting opinion of Justice Thomas:

In Lopez, I argued that allowing Congress to regulate intrastate, noncommercial activity under the Commerce Clause would confer on Congress a general "police power" over the Nation. This is no less the case if Congress ties its power to the Necessary and Proper Clause rather than the Commerce Clause. When agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration raided Monson's home, they seized six cannabis plants. If the Federal Government can regulate growing a half-dozen cannabis plants for personal consumption (not because it is interstate commerce, but because it is inextricably bound up with interstate commerce), then Congress' Article I powers--as expanded by the Necessary and Proper Clause--have no meaningful limits. Whether Congress aims at the possession of drugs, guns, or any number of other items, it may continue to appropria[te] state police powers under the guise of "regulating commerce."

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