Isn't this man merely taking the same arguments we get from Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell? He seems in their camp regarding violation of rights and I see he is coauthoring books with a promiment Rockwellian.

Dear Mr. Palmer,

That's a great headline. I quite appreciate your civil tone.

I don't reject the 14th Amendment, I reject the Incorporation Doctrine -- the idea that the Due Process Clause (which was originally understood as requiring that people receive the advantage of traditional procedures before they could be fined, imprisoned, or executed) makes the Bill of Rights enforceable against the states. You mastered that doctrine in your first year of law school, right? And you know all about the 14th Amendment's drafting and ratification?

Since you clearly don't, you shouldn't be calling my argument "dumb". People interested in being enlightened on this score should consult _The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution_ by Yours Truly,
Kevin R.C. Gutzman, J.D., Ph.D.
Associate Professor of History
Western Connecticut State University

Hi, Professor, Ph.D., J.D. Gutzman

Is the District of Columbia a state, a "pseudo state", or a federal district?

Are you confused about the terms? It sounds like it to me. How much did you pay for those degrees?

If what one learns in the first year of law school is the standard, then Prof. Gutzman is wrong. At Florida (and I can't imagine we're unique, here) we learned that "liberty" in the 14th Amendment referred to a class of fundamental liberty interests (e.g., freedom of speech) that states could not violate.

Libertarian reverence for the US Constitution is unwise. The Constitution was created in order to strengthen the power of government, not to limit it. Supposedly, the Articles of Confederation were inadequate for fostering nationalism and had to be replaced. I think Rockwell agrees with me that it is foolish to expect that government will protect an individual's natural rights.

Professor Gutzman,

What do you think about the 14 amendment incorporating the BOR through the privaliges and immunities clause, as argued by Bryan Wildenthal here:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=963487

I am not a lawyer, but even *I* know that the 14th Amendment came after the civil war, and the civil war was after 1833, the year of Barron v. Baltimore. The 14th Amendment imposes limitations on the states and smaller political subdivisions of the US to preserve the "privileges and immunities" of individual citizens from interference by the state.

That said, this doctrine of "incorporation", whereby each of the rights preserved by the Bill of Rights is applied against all governments in the US, has not been applied - yet - to the 2nd Amendment by the Supreme Court. (Each of the rights has been "incorporated" by a Supreme Court decision. May DC v. Heller be that case for the 2nd Amendment.)

Even so, DC is *not* a state, despite "delegation" of powers from Congress to the local city council. Congress cannot delegate authority it does not have. If Congress cannot infringe the 2nd Amendment, the City Council clearly cannot. Otherwise, you'd find anything Congress wanted to do, but was ruled "unconstitutional" could merely be "delegated" to some other governmental entity.

Sorry, Professor Gutzman, your "logic" simply isn't logical.

Richard

More piling on:

http://skipoliva.com/?p=289

The professor might not be dumb, but his argument is.

For what it's worth, I've heard it argued that Justice Thomas also rejects incorporation doctrine. But whatever the merits of that position (and isn't it interesting that Prof. Gutzman J.D. Ph.D. provides a sort of reverse straw man to build up that position in his fleeting rebuttal to Tom?), it clearly doesn't do much regarding an entity under federal jurisdiction.

Despite unsupported assertions to the contrary, Gutzman's argument isn't "just plain dumb." I disagree with Prof. Gutzman's conclusion, but his reasoning isn't without merit.

I take from his statements that he disagrees that an "incorporation" of the bill of rights by the 14th Amendment was intended by those who drafted the amendment. This is not an unreasonable position, as anyone who has read the earliest cases interpreting the 14th well know. Additionally, the "total incorporation" doctrine has never been adopted in any SCOTUS decision. The "selective incorporation" doctrine has been, however, and the second amendment has never been incorporated under that framework. Up to this point, I suspect Prof. Gutzman and I agree.

Where we disagree, however, is where he asserts that DC should be treated as a de facto state. Such an assertion, in concert with an unincorporated 2nd Amendment, would mean that Heller's case would fail. In Gutzman's view, then, both (a) the individual vs. collective right-to-keep-and-bear-arms question, and (b) the incorporation of the 2nd Am. question are at stake in Heller. So far as I am aware, most constitutional law scholars believe that only the former (and not the latter) is up for a decision in the present case.

I just don't think Congress can delegate what it does not have, and so any delegation of power in the name of "home rule" can not put a federal organ--which the District of Columbia is under Art. I, Sec. 8, Cl. 17--in the same position as a sovereign state which has ratified the federal Constitution and been admitted to the Union.

Oh, and for those who delight in mocking the man for stating his credentials at the outset: He only listed his terminal degrees. Gutzman holds a B.A., M.A., M.P.A., J.D., and Ph.D.

A friend just suggested another "original intent" reason for Gutzman's argument to be taken seriously: The Bill of Rights was ratified in order to guarantee certain, specific limits on the federal government's power with regard to the states. Since Heller's injury occurred outside of "the states" in a federal district, no violation of federalism occurred.

I suspect this is the reason that Gutzman asserts that an application of the 2nd Am. to DC would be outside of the original scope of the protection enumerated therein. (I should, I suppose, at this point note that I am an anarchist and I don't think that any government restriction on the individual right to keep and bear arms is ever warranted. We are, however, talking about the _laws_ as they were and are, and not about the _law_ as it should be.)

Dick, you seem very excited about this issue. But you shouldn't let your excitement cloud your reason so. Think about your excuses for sloppy thinking on Gutzman's part.

1. The 2nd Amendment has not yet been incorporated by the Supreme Court, therefore, it must never be incorporated. (If that were true, how could any of the other Amendments be incorporated?)

2. The "original intent" of the Founders was to limit the states and, although DC is not a state, it might have been the original intent of the founders that it be treated as a state. When the drafters wrote "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," they intended "the right of the people" to mean "the right of the state legislature." (Now apply that to the Fourth Amendment.)

3. Tom and others have "supported" the assertion that Gutzman's argument is "just plain dumb." That support is that it doesn't make sense -- it's a "dumb argument." Gutzman seems to be arguing that a non-state can be treated like a state if the Congress says it may act like a state, thus meaning that the Congress that violate any and all limitations on its powers by creating state-like entities and then treating them as if they are states.

You can't be serious.

Btw, who cares whether you're an anarchist?

Marty,

Thanks for your brilliant, albeit irrelevant insight into my feelings. Are you a counseling professional?

I am not sure why you deem it necessary to ask "who cares whether you are an anarchist?" I explicitly stated why I was mentioning that. (For those in the cheap seats, I was making the point that I am not making a moral or even legal argument for the DC gun ban, but rather against the idea that Gutzman's argument was "just plain dumb.")

As for your numbered points...

1) Like Gutzman, I oppose the aggrandizement of the federal government's authority through the incorporation doctrine. I would rather fight weak local governments than a strong central one. I am a libertarian, and so I don't like concentrations of fiat power. Are you a libertarian? If so, what does that mean to you and how does your brand of libertarianism justify continued expansions of the federal government?

2) I never claimed that DC should be treated "as a state." Gutzman did. I disagreed with him on this point, for anyone who cares to read what I actually wrote above. DC is clearly a creature of the federal government. The federal authority to create the district and exercise legislative authority is granted in Art. I, Sec. 8, Cl. 17, as I also mentioned above.

3) Tom said Gutzman's argument was "Just Plain Dumb" (see the article title). It is neither "plain" ("evident to the mind or senses" or "free from subtlety") nor "dumb" ("lacking intelligence"). These terms as applied to Gutzman are mere unwarranted, hysterical hyperbole. They are arrows fired at a personal enemy, not intelligent arguments against Gutzman's position. They evidence anti-intellectual presumptuousness and not the serious, careful consideration one would hope to see displayed by a man of letters.

My posts were meant to show that Palmer's name-calling was unfounded, since Gutzman's position is neither "dumb" nor "strange." Calling it so merely ignores the debate that has been ongoing on this topic for more than a century.

My usual impression about people who parade degrees is that they're insecure. And Professor Ph.D. J.D. Gutzman sure reinforces that impression.

Regarding the D-word, what's the problem with calling an argument "dumb." Professor Ph.D. J.D. Gutzman offered a dumb argument that's based on confusion. Time to move on.

How refreshing LN--a recitation of the dogma, again without support. I guess saying something over and over proves it in your group of friends and colleagues, eh?

It's not a dogma to observe that people who list their degrees after letters tend to be insecure. It's also not a dogma to observe that an argument is dumb. An argument that the 2nd Amendment only limits Congress and not the states and that, although DC isn't a state, Congress, which is limited by the 2nd Amendment, "treats it like a state," even though it's not a state in the Constitution, it must be the case that Congress can exceed its authority by creating a jurisdiction that isn't a state, but it treats like a state, and that therefore "When it comes to the Second Amendment, then, D.C. is a state, and the Second Amendment does not restrict its policy-making discretion.") is a dumb argument. DC can't be a state and not a state.

Dick Clark = pwned

I see above much discussion of the word "dumb" as applied to a risible argument. Please allow me to clarify:

If stating that a "pseudo-state" created by Congress can exceed the authority of Congress to create bodies that are not subject to limitations on Congress, which can then infringe the right of the people to keep and bear arms, and that a "pseudo-state" *is* a state for purposes of application of Constitutional law, is not a "dumb" argument, I don't know what is.

But if anyone objects, I'd be happy to substitute "absurd," "ridiculous," "embarrassing," or "brainless."

It's especially dumb because, after calling DC a "false state," Professor Gutzman insists that when it comes to the Constitution, "D.C. is a state." Duh.

It is amazing how senseless most of the arguments against the right to keep and bear arms are. And now the Rockwellians are up in, well, not arms, but they're definitely opposed to whatever Tom Palmer does. Tom promotes the right to keep and bear arms, so Lew Rockwell's zombies have to be against it. What complete jokes.

Mach, in this case, I doubt it's _because_ Tom Palmer promotes it. It's because they're (neo-)confederates, so they pretend that the 14th amendment doesn't exist or doesn't have any meaning.

Despite claiming to be libertarian, they'd actually rather increase overall government power over the individual, as long as it means the federal government is limited vis-a-vis the states.

It's rather clear that the neo-Confederates clustered around Lew Rockwell are not in favor of liberty. They favor state's rights, that is, state power, at the local level. Any attempt to use a federal court, it seems, to vindicate a constitutional right is simply ruled out. (Although I rather doubt that they would hesitate to appeal to a federal court in a personal case, for example, if one of their websites were to be shut down by a state government.)

Their hatred of one state leads to reverence for another. One of them puts it clearly above: "I think Rockwell agrees with me that it is foolish to expect that government will protect an individual's natural rights." Is his solution to take out a gun to protect himself from the state, when the option of going to court seems more likely to succeed, to lead to liberty, to avoid violence?

The term "loonies" was invented for this group of neo-Confederate state-worshipers. They claim to be for "liberty," but whenever possible, they prefer oppression by local authorities (they worship the states of the American union), even when legal avenues for liberty are clear and set out in the federal constitution.

I find it laughable that people here seem to be asserting that I am against Heller and rooting for the DC gun ban to be upheld. We are following the Heller case in my Constitutional Law class this semester, and Heller's case seems to me to be a good one. Furthermore, I would say that a win for Heller would be a positive achievement for liberty, since applying the 2nd Am. to the federal government would mean a net gain for liberty and a net reduction of federal power. In fact, Tom Palmer has received email from me praising his involvement in the Heller case (I sent it as "beltwaylibertarian@hushmail.com," when I forwarded along a link to a cartoon featuring Palmer, Rockwell, Kinsella, and others.)

I do not support enlarging the federal state in the name of achieving liberty, however, because a larger central state is antithetical to liberty, by definition. The incorporation doctrine does not seem to be at issue in Heller, which deals exclusively with an injury to a DC resident by DC, a federal organ. I oppose the incorporation doctrine, but I agree with the folks here that this isn't relevant to Heller. I said this in my very first post above.

The straw men that my accusers are erecting (calling me a "neo-confederate," even though I was actually offered a job by the SPLC, which coined that term in its modern usage, for instance) make it clear that my basic points--that Dr. Palmer's name-calling was and is unwarranted--struck home.

I don't favor "states rights." I don't believe that the state--any state--is legitimate. Naturally, then, I don't believe that such an illegitimate entity can possess rights. So far as I know (and I've attended over a dozen LvMI conferences and seminars), this is the commonly held view of those who attend LvMI events. Mises scholar Mark Thornton's book with Robert Ekelund, Tariffs, Blockades, and Inflation, was described by an unaffiliated reviewer as follows:

"For libertarians who view a nascent Confederacy as a laissez-faire paradise (except for blacks), the authors provide a valuable corrective. They recognize the ironic paradox: the states' rights Confederacy had strong central government action while the Federal government's policies were less centralized."
(http://eh.net/bookreviews/library/0769)

I have never heard any praise of the constituent states of the CSA at an LvMI event, save their secession from the union. Likewise, one will hear talk of the clamor for Flemish secession, Quebecois secession, etc. Secession--the fracturing of the state into smaller, more easily attacked fragments--is what is seen as virtuous. To continue to lie and claim that Rockwell promotes any state--CSA or USA--is to merely abolish the truth for the sake of feeding a destructive rivalry between two factions within the libertarian movement.

The inconsistency and impropriety of Palmer's slings and arrows are blatantly obvious when one considers his reaction (http://www.tomgpalmer.com/archives/042406.php) to Pilon's support of the Protect America Act. Palmer, who has been a vigorous proponent of the guilt-by-association process for defaming fellow libertarians seemed very respectful and even gracious to Pilon's ridiculous, fascist support of that step towards a more invasive police state. Where was the disrespectful, name-calling then? By Palmer's standards, the close association between the two men warrants an angry, invective-laden diatribe, at least if Palmer wishes to avoid the appellations "neo-fascist," "jack-boot enabler," etc.

No, we didn't see such unapolegetic indignation then, because there are no principles being uniformly applied here. Palmer is on a vendetta against anyone associated with LvMI and Lew Rockwell, and he'll surely not let reason cloud his hate.

The Rockwellians are just too funny. Here's their latest bit of self-importance. (http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/020146.html)
Anything to get attention. What a pack of losers. Everything is a conspiracy against them. The media. The government. Big business. Israel. The Cato Institute. Reason. Tom Palmer. Charles Koch. The Dalai Lama. Yatta yatta yatta. Even the fact that they aren't noticed is evidence of a conspiracy. I mean, they're important. How could the media not notice whatever they say?

Well, the neo-Con swamp denizens are important. Not everyone wins a place in the Fever Swamp Hall of Fame or gets noticed in the Atlantic.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/03/comparing-crise.html#more

Reality Check: Those movies weren't created by anyone associated with Lew or LvMI. They were made by Jason Ditz from Antiwar.com. Surely you can't spite someone for being willing to laugh at themselves, such as the linked blog item demonstrated?!?

If you do reproach someone for being good-humored about being the punchline for a joke, I think it is _you_ who are finding every little thing to be evidence for your little snipe hunt.

Reality Check:

Did you watch the movies? They make fun of the continual sniping that goes on between certain people at the LvMI and Cato. (And the sense of self-importance that many libertarians have.)

Those movies are not neutral and I really dont understand the Rothbard hero worship?

They're embarrassing to whoever made them, not to mention to the fruitcakes who promote them.

But this has drifted from the other embarrassment: the contradictory DC-is-a-state-and-not-a-state argument of Professor, Ph.D., J.D. Gutzman. It doesn't make any sense. It's not a federalist argument, or an anti-federalist argument. It's a self-contradiction.

David Boaz was right. You can't teach pigs to sing. It wastes your time and only annoys the pigs.

BTW, DC essentially made the same argument about the application of the 2nd Am. to DC in its petition for a writ of certiorari, noting that

"The District is the very “seat of the Government of the United States,” U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 17, and one of the few places where Congress and the District government as its delegate may exercise “all the legislative powers which a state may exercise over its affairs.” District of Columbia v. Carter, 409 U.S. 418,429 (1973) (quoting *20 Berman v. Parker, 348 U.S. 26, 31 (1954)); District of Columbia v. John R. Thompson Co., 346 U.S. 100, 110 (1953); see D.C. Code §§ 1-201.01 et seq."

The wording is different, but this is essentially the same proposition as Gutzman's suggesting that DC must be treated as a "pseudo-state"--not in the more etymologically accurate meaning of "pseudo" that Dr. Palmer inferred, but in the sense that DC may be treated as a "quasi-state" for certain purposes. This seems to be settled law, and not a dumb idea insofar as it represents current judicial interpretations of the constitutional allocation of legislative powers. Whether these attitudes are advisable or libertarian are different questions.

This argument then is obviously not so dumb as to have been culled from a DC petition for writ of cert in a landmark case going to SCOTUS. To say that Gutzman's assertion of it is "strange" and "dumb" suggests either that Dr. Palmer may not be keeping up on his own reading in a case to which he was party or that he feigned surprise in order to accuse Gutzman in bad faith.

To be clear, though, when SCOTUS granted cert it narrowed the question to the following:

"The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted limited to the following question: Whether the following provisions, D.C. Code §§ 7-2502.02(a)(4), 22-4504(a), and 7-2507.02, violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state- regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes? "

This sidesteps the objection raised by DC and by Gutzman, and so we won't have a direct answer on that issue from Heller.

Incidentally, if one treats DC as a state for the purposes of enforcing the Bill of Rights, or a particular amendment therefrom, the Incorporation Doctrine would potentially come into play, as Gutzman suggests.

Look, "Dick," you're evidently an obsessive kook who just can't get a simple point. No one has argued that DC is in fact a state, other than Gutzman, who calls it a pseudo-state and says for the purposes of the Second Amendment, it *is* a state, but that the Bill of Rights doesn't bind the states and evidently doesn't bind Congress, either. Whatever.

The amendment states that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." What part of that is so unclear? One set of ideologues says that the term "the people" makes it a collective right, which means that the Fourth Amendment (which also refers to "the right of the people") would only protect government offices and employees from unreasonable search and seizure. Others say that the "militia clause" makes it only a collective right, or only a right of the states. But asserting *a" purpose does not mean that no others can be exercised. (Article I, Section 8 includes the purpose of "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" as *a* reason for patents and copyrights, but it does not follow that only scientific advances and useful arts can be patented or copyrighted.) Gutzman's reading (see his confused essay cited above) suggests that maybe he thinks it is an individual right, but his reading makes it a state (collective) right against the federal government. So against whom is it a right?

Your guy, a member of the PIG club ("Politically Incorrect Guides" to politically biased history), has offered a really dumb and confused reason to oppose our lawsuit. Get over it.

(Note: if you ever grow up and become a lawyer, learn to parse things carefully. I did not "feign suprise," nor did I accuse Gutzman of doing anything "in bad faith." I said he offered a dumb argument, but that I was not surprised when I found that he co-authored a book with League of the South activist Tom Woods.)

At last! The gloves are off! Clark thinks he has scored a point against Palmer by citing the argument of the DC government! Well, let's see how Palmer responds. That's the argument that Palmer's side rejected -- ouch! -- and which was rejected by the court. Palmer responds by actually citing the law. Imagine that! Then he shows that the arguments of the other side are incoherent. It looks like...yes, folks...Palmer wins!

At least, that is what this argument would look like if it were a sports contest.

Rockwellite Neo-Confederate Statists in League with DC Goverment Second Amendment Rights Infringers. Why are we not surprised?

What is with those Rockwell guys? How do they know that local governments are always "weaker" than central ones? Wasn't that the point of Madison's Federalist Number Ten? Liberty could flourish in a large republic and tyranny could flourish in a small one. It was about getting the mix right to promote _individual_ liberty. In a federation some powers are denied to the states, some delegated to the federal government, some denied to the federal government AND to the states. The Second Amendment clearly restricts the federal government, which has jurisdiction over D.C. And the 14th Amendment, like the 13th and the 15th, put restrictions on the states:

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

So both the Feds and the States are restricted from infringing the individual right to keep and bear arms.

But the neoConfederates don't like any restrictions on the states and they are so sure that the Feds are always worse, that they want to consider DC a state. Crazy.

When I hear a self-described “anarcho-capitalist” defending the concept of state’s rights in this manner I usually detect a Rockwellian. I suspect this is the case of “Dick Clark” and that truly does explain a lot.

I would like to correct one thing he said. He referred to “Palmer’s name-calling.” What was the name calling? Tom said the argument was plain dumb. I agree. The argument was dumb and is dumb -- but popular with the Right-wing types who have drifted into libertarianism. But to call an argument dumb is not name calling. Normally when someone refers to name calling they mean abusive names directed at an individual, or names meant to be abusive. For instance, “belt-way libertarian” would be a good example. But Tom did not call the professor names. He called the argument dumb. And that is not the same thing at all.

I find their arguments to be anti-libertarianism disguised as “pure liberty”. They run a purity police on others yet they continue to push doctrines and ideas which are destructive to liberty -- such as ignoring the Bill of Rights when it comes to the states (or DC) and their anti-immigration stand. I personally think that Rockwell is barely one step away from being Pat Buchanan.

A couple quick points regarding the bizarre argument that DC is a "state" --

First, Congress' delegation of "home rule" power does not make DC a state. All DC lawmaking is ultimately the product of an enabling act passed by Congress. (Were it any different, the home rule statute would be unconstitutional, since only Congress is given the power to run the seat of government, pursuant to Art I, sect 8, cl. 17). DC is a creature of Congress, and Congress can't circumvent the constitution by acting through a delegate.

Second, the Bill of Rights has always applied directly to the capital city, even pre-incorporation. Moreover, even the never-incorporated provisions of the Bill of Rights apply to DC. That's why, for example, DC is required to indict felons by grand juries (pursuant to the 5th amendment) and is required to provide juries in civil trials (pursuant to the 7th amendment), even though the states are not so required. This is also why the 14th amendment equal protection clause (which, on its face, applies only to the states) does not apply directly to the DC government (it does apply indirectly, through a doctrine of reverse incorporation, but that point is neither here nor there).

Simply put, this case does not invoke the incorporation doctrine. Indeed, (as I understand) one of the main reasons it was brought against DC and not a state government was to avoid the complications of incorporation.

Don't worry about the idiots, Tom. Their arguments aren't even weak; they're nonsensical. Win the case and secure our rights!

Dr. Palmer,

Here are a few points from the point of view of someone versed in the law.

Above, you stated:

"Article I, Section 8 includes the purpose of 'To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts' as *a* reason for patents and copyrights, but it does not follow that only scientific advances and useful arts can be patented or copyrighted.

This is how the Court has construed this clause and as far as I know, there is no significant commentator who thinks them wrong.

Second, Mr. Clark's point throughout has been that it was unprofessional to call Dr. Gutzman's argument dumb. On this Clark is correct, Gutzman's argument is incorrect, and it is hopefully a losing one. But it is not "dumb" -- it is a solid fall-back argument advanced by the city. Gutzman is entirely within the realm of reasonable discourse to suggest that the Court should adopt that position.

Although I strongly disagree with Gutzman on this, Clark is right to point out that getting personal is counter-productive. When you call those you disagree with "dumb" or "obsessive kook[s]", those of us on the sidelines are not going to take the rest of what you have to say very seriously --- especially when one of the people you are attacking, Clark, *agrees* with you on substance, but simply disagrees with your unprofessional style of "debate".

You are mistaken, MHC, in your evaluation of Mr. Clark, who is, indeed, obsessive, as his repeated postings -- one after the other -- suggest. Gutzman's position is not quite the same as the city government's (not much of a "libertarian" position on which to fall back, and a part of a remarkable set of risible claims, concluding with the implicit promise not to prosecute if a firearm is used in self-defense). Gutzman's claim rests on the contradictory notion that it is possible for the Congress to delegate a power it does not have to an entity that is not a state, thus giving it the powers of a state -- even making it a state -- without it being one. (I will set aside his views on the 14th Amendment.)

Finally, what of the issue of whether an argument can be a "dumb" argument without the person who has advanced it being so. Of course it can, just as an argument can be implausible, ridiculous, or risible without the author of the argument being implausible, ridiculous, or risible. Indeed, I called his case "an especially strange argument," but that does not mean that I am calling him "an especially strange person." You should be more careful in your reading: I most certainly did not call Gutzman "dumb," but I did call his argument a dumb argument. And so it is. I did refer to Mr. Clark as an obsessive kook, partly because of his strange and insistent repeated postings and partly because of other unpleasant interactions I and others have had with him. He is a Class-A cultist with the Lew Rockwell cult and an especially avid and slavish defender of the lot of them whenever their uglier views (Rockwell's "racialism," for example) are discussed.

Gutzman's argument is dumb; the author may not be. Clark's behavior is that of a kook, which qualifies him as one.

Allow me to chime in on the issue of whether the so-called militia clause limits the right to that purpose. As Dr. Palmer has argued, stating a purpose does not imply that that is the only purpose for which a right can be invoked. Turning to patents and copyrights, I am unaware of any requirement that one show that a pornographic novel or film is "useful" in order to secure the copyright of the creator. I believe that MHC is in error in that regard. Printing may be a useful art, but one need not show that a copyrighted novel is "useful" in order to secure a copyright.

this si not dmb it is just stupid plus i did not read it either.