Beito and Somin on Eminent Domain as a Civil Rights Issue

Battle over eminent domain is another civil rights issue

Few protested the Kelo ruling more ardently than the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In an amicus brief filed in the case, it argued that “[t]he burden of eminent domain has and will continue to fall disproportionately upon racial and ethnic minorities, the elderly, and economically disadvantaged.” Unfettered eminent domain authority, the NAACP concluded, is a “license for government to coerce individuals on behalf of society’s strongest interests.”

Indeed, it's truly hard to imagine...

Police: Captive woman had at least 6 children by father

“One can’t imagine how it could happen, how nobody could realize anything of what was going on in the cellar of this house,” Schmitzberger told CNN. “It’s quite unimaginable.”

Andrew Mwenda and Colleagues Arrested -- Write Now!

Andrew Mwenda (see above) has been arrested, along with his colleagues Odobo Bichachi and John Njoroge, in a raid by the Ugandan government on the magazine Independence. Andrew is a member of the 2008 International Selection Committee for the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty, which just announced on Thursday the award of the prize to Venezuelan student Yon Goicoechea.

Write to the Ugandan government to insist on freedom of the press and freedom for Andrew Mwenda, Odobo Bichachi, and John Njoroge, (The Ugandan Embassy can be contacted by mail, email, fax or phone: details here. Please be respectful, but direct, clear, and forceful.)

Dancing for Jefferson

A story worth reading…..

(My own little contribution.)

There's Still Time...After You've Sent Your Money to Uncle Sam, Send a Letter to Kareem, Another Victim of Unjust State Power

Flood the Jail with Mail!

Send letters of support to:

Alexandria
Borg Al-Arab Prison
Room 1 Section 22
Prisoner Abdul Kareem Nabil Suleiman
The Arab Republic of Egypt

Please be sure to print and attach the Arabic address, as well!

NOTE: American tax slaves are not the only ones who should support Kareem. Regardless of where you are, a letter or a postcard will be GREATLY APPRECIATED by a harmless prisoner whose rights are being violated.

Jail Spitzer, Free Everyone Else

My comments on the Spitzer case were in the March 28, 2008 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education in an overview of views on prostitution that were expressed as a result of Spitzer’s case.

CRITICAL MASS Should Prostitution Be Legalized?
By ROBERT LALASZ

You won’t find much pity online for Eliot Spitzer, who was forced to resign as governor of New York this month because of disclosures that he had patronized a high-priced prostitution ring — the kind of organization he had vigorously prosecuted as attorney general of the state. But a debate about whether Spitzer should have been exposed in the first place has flared up in the blogosphere and commentary pages, courtesy of that perennial hot-button issue: Should prostitution be legalized?

What’s different about the present discussion is that there’s now economic, anthropological, and sociological analysis of sex work upon which to draw — not to mention the voices of prostitutes themselves. What hasn’t changed is that some analysts continue to view sex work through the lens of their own mores and philosophies — whether libertine or restrictive

Quotes from Martha Nussbaum, Andrew Sullivan, Noah Millman, Patty Kelly, Scott Lemieux, Amanda Marcotte, Ross Douthat, Suki Falconberg, and myself.

Hat tip to Cyril Morong

Just Plain Dumb

I just came across an especially strange argument (and that’s saying something) against going to court to vindicate the rights of American citizens to keep and bear arms in the District of Columbia. The author thinks that

A) the Bill of Rights does not apply to the states at all (he evidently rejects the 14th Amendment, so he concludes that the states may legally prohibit the free exercise of religion, shut down newspapers critical of the Governor, use torture, engage in unrestricted searches of “persons, houses, papers, and effects,” prohibit the possession of firearms, etc., etc.), and

B) the District of Columbia (which is a federal district and not one of the united states of America), “insofar as it behaves as a state, is properly treated as a pseudo-state by the Supreme Court.”*

The result of all that confusion?

Congress long ago delegated home rule functions to D.C., and it allows residents to elect mayors, city councilors, and a delegate to Congress. When it comes to the Second Amendment, then, D.C. is a state, and the Second Amendment does not restrict its policy-making discretion.

I’ve read and heard lots and lots of strained and implausible arguments against our lawsuit to vindicate the right to keep and bear arms, but few as risible as that one. But after my initial surprise that something so silly had made it onto the web, I noticed the author’s publications and the surprise vanished.

*If the District of Columbia is a “pseudo-state,” that means it is a “false” state, and if it is a false state, why should it be treated as a state?

The Second Amendment before the Supremes

(For the CSpan coverage, choose the segment titled, “March 18, 2008: Tom Palmer and Robert Levy on C-SPAN on the DC gun ban case.”)

As I have said before, Bob Levy is a hero of liberty. It is a great honor to work with him.

The Supremes

I was able to witness the oral argument in the DC Second Amendment case. It was an amazing experience — like sitting in one of the most intelligent, interesting, engaging, and important academic seminars of one’s life. But it wasn’t “just academic.” It was very serious.

I did a fair number of interviews today and just got back from the Kojo Nnamdi show, a widely heard show among D.C.’s chattering classes. I was earlier interviewed on the Supreme Court steps, along with the lawyers for the case, and I’m about to go off to another interview.

It’s important, but it’s also exhausting. (I have a lot of other sticks in the fire at the same time.) Off to another interview….

My (Our) Heroic Lawyers

Robert Levy and Alan Gura, “Armed for Liberty,” Legal Times, March 17, 2008

After Spitzer is Jailed

It’s Time to Legalize Prostitution

Actually, it should be legalized immediately, but with a “Grandfather Clause” that exempts Eliot Spitzer and only Eliot Spitzer from the legalization. He put others in prison for just what he is accused of doing and he gloried and exulted in their degradation. No sympathy.

Interview with Washington Post Radio on the Supreme Court Gun-Ban Challenge

I was interviewed today on Washington Post Radio, along with Dennis Henigan from the Brady Center, about the Supreme Court case. I’m hoping to have a seat to see the oral argument next Tuesday.

Property in One's Labor

While doing a little research to assist my Russian colleagues with the Cato.ru essay contest and summer school, both of which focus on property and freedom, I found again this wonderful statement from Adam Smith, offered in defense of freedom to labor against licensing and other restrictions on free exchange:

The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable. The patrimony of a poor man lies in the strength and dexterity of his hands; and to hinder him from employing this strength and dexterity in what manner he thinks proper without injury to his neighbour, is a plain violation of this most sacred property. It is a manifest encroachment upon the just liberty both of the workman, and of those who might be disposed to employ him. As it hinders the one from working at what he thinks proper, so it hinders the aothersa from employing whom they think proper. To judge whether he is fit to be employed, may surely be trusted to the discretion of the employers whose interest it so much concerns. The affected anxiety of the law–giver lest they should employ an improper person, is evidently as impertinent as it is oppressive.

*Adam Smith, Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence Vol. 2a An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. 1, CHAPTER X: Of Wages and Profit in the different Employments of Labour and Stock (paragraph 591) (I am so grateful to the Liberty Fund for making such works available in beautiful and inexpensive print editions and at zero price in easily accessible forms online.)

Exchanging Rockets, Rather than Goods and Services

Playing cat and mouse with Gaza rockets

Dozens die in Israel-Gaza clashes

Justice, whether restitution of property or punishment for crime, is usually a noble goal, but peace, life, and co-existence are often more important.

Would that they could trade commodities and services, rather than rockets. As Jean-Baptiste Say noted in his important Treatise of Political Economy, “the sense of mutual interest begets international kindness, extends the sphere of useful intercourse, and leads to a prosperity, permanent, because it is natural.”

A Test Case in Turkey

Some news about my friend Atilla Yayla: “Turkey: Academic Freedom Curtailed”

One Year Is MORE Than Enough....Release Kareem

This Friday, February 22, marks the first anniversary of Kareem’s sentencing to four years in prison in Egypt….for the “crime” of blogging.

What You Can Do

Especially Important: Respectful Letters to Egyptian Officials

Who Gave Those Jerks The Right?

I admit that I don’t follow sports and, frankly, I don’t care about such matters. (Nothing against those who do, mind you.) But I was shocked to hear about the abusive Congressional hearings on a matter over which the members of Congress have no jurisdiction — whether athletes use performance enhancing substances. Colman McCarthy of the Washington Post gets it right: “Sanctimony’s Turn at Bat.”

I’m hoping that Roger Clemens polls the members of Waxman’s committee on their use of performance-enhancing drugs. Start with Viagra. Or Cialis, ready for action “when the moment is right” — say, a congressman stumbling home after a late-night floor vote on an earmark bill. Clemens might ask the members how many need shots of caffeine drugs to get themselves up and out every morning. He might ask the members how often they reach for another shot of Jack Daniels to enhance their performance while grubbing for bucks from lobbyists at fundraisers. And before leaving Capitol Hill, he should grill the allegedly clean-living baseball reporters on how many of them sit in the press box enhancing their bodies with alcohol, nicotine and caffeine drugs. And a blunt or two when night games go extra innings and deadline nerves need steadying.

Our Brief in Defense of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Has Been Filed

Here it is. (There is a separate petition to reinstate the five additional plaintiffs. But the meat of the case is in this brief.)

I Respectfully Dissent

My colleague Roger Pilon has a fine intellect. But I cannot follow the logic of his recent endorsement of the “Protect America Act.” Like many of my colleagues, I was startled to see the establishment of rules restricting the ability of the administration to collect intelligence on Americans compared to central planning of an economy: “Congress, to say nothing of the courts, can no more manage such affairs than it can the economy.” I see no good grounds to compare the two. The establishment of restrictive rules — side constraints — on spying is quite different from attempting to direct the behavior of countless consumers and producers.

My colleague Timothy Lee has shown, to my satisfaction, that Roger has not properly grasped or dealt with the issues involved in the legislative debate.

The Congress is authorized to suspend the Writ of Habeas Corpus, as Article I, Section 9, which explicitly restricts that power, implicitly assigns the power to Congress: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases or Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” The lawyers of the Cato Institute took the lead in opposing the attempt of the administration to suspend that writ.

But where is the Congress authorized to suspend the Fourth Amendment?

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

A Chilling Prospect

I get daily emails from friends in Kenya who are terrified of the prospect of systematic “ethnic cleansing” and mass murder. We hope that cool heads will prevail and that the power crisis will be resolved peacefully and tolerably for all sides.

Sentenced to Prison, but No Time.....for Speech

My friend Atilla Yayla, a courageous leader of the Association for Liberal Thinking in Turkey, has been found guilty of allegedly insulting the founder of the modern Turkish state, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The 15 month prison sentence was suspended.

Atilla is a brave man and a friend of the liberty of everyone. Please write to the Turkish Ambassador in your country, respectfully (please) requesting that proceedings be undertaken to void the sentence. Here is the info for the Turkish Embassy in the USA.

Background from my previous blog posts here, here, and here.

The New York Times ran a piece on Friday on the likely direction for freedom of speech in Turkey, “Turkey to Alter Speech Law,” which focuses on Atilla’s case.

Liberté pour Kareem

The FreeKareem.org campaign now in French.

Your friends will not forget you, Kareem.

Freedom for A Saudi Blogger

Kareem's Case

Reporters Without Borders awards Kareem

There are things you can do to help this brave young man whose rights are being violated every day.

A Horror to Remember

From the BBC: “Ukraine remembers famine horror”

Some went insane. They never did become completely still. One could tell from their eyes—because their eyes shone. These were the people who cut up and cooked corpses, who killed their own children and ate them. In them the beast rose to the top as the human being died. I saw one. She had been brought to the district center under convoy. Her face was human, but her eyes were those of a wolf. These are cannibals, they said, and must all be shot. But they themselves, who drove the mother to the madness of eating her own children, are evidently not guilty at all! For that matter, can you really find anyone who is guilty? Just go and ask, and they will all tell you that they did it for the sake of virtue, for everybody’s good. That’s why they drove mothers to cannibalism!

Remember that the next time you see some idiot with a t-shirt emblazoned with CCCP or the face of the loathesome Che Guevara.

Supremes Agree to Review Second Amendment Case

Our case is on the way to the Supreme Court. That includes a petition to reinstate standing for myself and the four others who were original plaintiffs. The heroic Bob Levy, the man who has made it all possible, addresses the case in the Los Angeles Times and in a podcast.

Free Kareem

The internet connection in Tanzania is a bit slow (and I’m very busy), but I’ve managed to follow the progress of the Free Kareem rallies, which have been a great success. Check out the photos of the good people in Rio, Prague, Stockholm, Brussels, DC, Paris, and other cities who have rallied for a young man whom they don’t know, but who is suffering loss of freedom and regular beatings from his jailers. Visit www.freekareem.org, be inspired and become angry. And please do something. You can make a difference and save a young person’s life.

Some "Inside Baseball" About the Second Amendment Litigation

From the ABA Journal.

More Censorship and Jail Sentences in Egypt

BBC: “Egyptian journalists losing tug of war”

The four men were sentenced to one year in jail with hard labour and also given hefty fines for publishing false information with the aim of undermining national security, according to court papers cited by the Egyptian press.

Please express your support for a jailed Egyptian blogger (whom I know personally), in prison for the “crime” of expressing his views and nothing more: www.freekareem.org.

November 9: Please Help

Have These People Nothing Better to Do With Their Time?

Oh, no! An escort service may have been a…..prostitution service! Quelle surprise! But thanks to the hard work of the San Antonio Police Department, they’re busted. I feel safer now. Thank you, “law enforcement.”

Free Kareem Day...November 9

I hope that everyone who’s interested in individual rights (and who reads this) will try to attend a protest on November 9 for Abdelkareem Nabil Soliman, in prison in Egypt for the crime of writing a blog. Details are available at www.freekareem.org.

If you can’t attend, please write a letter to the Egyptian authorities. Details here.

Free Paul Jacob

For the offense of petitioning government for a redress of grievances, the state of Oklahoma is bringing felony charges against an old friend, Paul Jacob, who has already shown his mettle by standing up against state coercion and violence. This case is important for many reasons, including simple justice, but high on the list is that opportunities for citizens to influence — or even choose — their governments are being choked off one by one and that process must be resisted. Paul’s case is but one element in the attempt to limit the ability of citizens to influence their rulers. Political campaign finance is so highly regulated that “outsiders,” third parties, and independents are severely hobbled. As “loopholes” (read, exercise of freedom of speech and association) are discovered in the restrictions (e.g., Political Action Committees, independent expenditures, etc.) they are closed off. There is increasing talk of restricting the broadcast media, of placing campaign-finance-like restraints on non-governmental grass-roots, advocacy, and research organizations, and even of controlling the rights of newspaper owners to editorialize in their own papers.

The legislators don’t want to “represent” the people; they want to direct and control them, and above all, they want to be free from meddlesome, uppity citizens who put initiatives on ballots, recall elected officials, and even dare to put limits on how long the politicians keep their offices.

I have contributed to Paul’s campaign and I hope you will, too.

Free Kareem Rallies November 9 -- Please Organize One In Your City

Contact the FreeKareem.org campaign for more details. Please join people around the globe for this brave young man’s life and freedom.

Take a moment to imagine that you were in prison, condemned to four years, threatened with death, and even disowned by your own father, who called for your execution for disagreements about religion. Then do the right thing and become involved. If not you, who?

A Tale That Needs to be Told and Retold

Today’s New York Times tells the story of a French priest who is documenting the horrors of the extermination of Ukrainian Jews by the National Socialists: “A Priest Methodically Reveals Ukrainian Jews’ Fate.”

The hard thing is to imagine how anyone could do such things:

Other witnesses described how the Nazis were allowed only one bullet to the back per victim and that the Jews sometimes were buried alive. “One witness told of how the pit moved for three days, how it breathed,” Father Desbois recalled.

I was recently loaned a very interesting little book that warned the world in 1938, Address Unknown, by Kathrine Kressmann Taylor. It’s a short book and a good read. (The plot twist is very “1930s,” but appropriate.)

A Positive Step in Turkey

Turkey could rethink insult law: Turkish President Abdullah Gul has called for changes to a law that has allowed writers to face trial for insulting Turkish identity.

I know one person who has suffered prosecution for quite innocent remarks, Dr. Attila Yayla, president of the Association for Liberal Thinking.

Siloviki Statism

A very useful introduction to the political economy of the new Siloviki State: “The making of a neo-KGB state.”

Updates on DC Gun Case

For those who are interested in the ongoing litigation in which I’ve been involved to vindicate the right to “keep and bear arms” (see the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution), Alan Gura, one of the lawyers in the case, is maintaining a blog on the legal maneuvers at www.dcguncase.com/blog.

Interesting News from Russia

10 held in killing of Russian journalist

What a Victory in the War on Terror That Was

Convicting this guy on a charge quite different from the occasion for his original detention was well worth violating the U.S. Constitution and subverting the rule of law. The Bush administration must be proud.

A Harrowing and Terrible Story

The story of Alex Kurzem, aka Ilya Galperin. That that terrible period could have produced more than one case like that of Solomon Perel is remarkable.

A Travesty of Justice

The Jose Padilla case is a good example of why legal procedures and procedural rights are so important. My colleagues Tim Lynch and Bob Levy on this deeply disturbing case.

Mises, Call Your Office!

The stories keep repeating themselves, so they should come as no surprise. The world, it seems, is still governed by “cause and effect.” These New York Times articles tell the story:

“Anti-Inflation Curbs on Prices Create Havoc for Zimbabwe”

As the police and a pro-government youth militia swept into shops and factories, threatening arrest and worse unless prices were rolled back, staple foods vanished from store shelves and some merchants reported huge losses. News reports said that some shopkeepers who had refused to lower prices had been beaten by the youth militia, known as the Green Bombers for the color of their fatigues.

“Zimbabwe Bans Bulk Buying as Shops Run Empty”

Mugabe denies charges he has presided over the country’s worst economic crisis since independence from Britain in 1980 and instead says the West has sabotaged the economy to punish him for seizing white-owned commercial farms for blacks.

Note the use of “presided over” in place of “caused.”

(The economist Ludwig von Mises had important things to say on the dynamics of interventionism, much of which is being demonstrated again in the agony of the Zimbabweans.)

False Confessions

I was just introduced to a new website, The Truth About False Confessions, that contains warnings about the powers of prosecutors.

(Some years ago I read a book, on which I cannot at the moment put my hands, in which the author claimed that guilty pleas were not alowed under old English common law, in order to avoid giving to prosecutors the enormous powers they have under our current system of plea bargaining, in which confessions to lesser crimes and guilty pleas can be exacted under threat of prosecution for much more serious crimes. If anyone knows about such matters, please drop me a note; in a quick on-line search, I have not been able to find evidence to support the claim and I could not find it in a quick look through some of my legal history books.)

Please Watch This Video

On the occasion of Abdelkareem’s 23rd birthday and 223rd day in prison.

New Forms of International Cooperation

This is worth a read: “Arab and Chinese activists campaign to release ‘cyber dissidents’.”

Please don’t forget the case of Abdelkareem, who has been unjustly imprisoned for writing on his blog. I’m hoping to get more people involved for some rallies this fall. The network to Free Kareem had rallies for his freedom in 12 capital cities in April. Let’s go for double that this fall.

Policing Thoughts

Whatever you think of Scientology (and I don’t think that much of it, or of it that much), this is utterly absurd and totally objectionable: “Scientology cited for barring Cruise production.” I recall a few years ago arguing with people in Germany about the ban on scientology; the response of a Catholic Socialist, also given by the government minister who pushed through the ban, was that Scientology should not be allowed because, “The things they teach are not true.” Um, right.

(My own minimal involvement with Scientology was back in, hmmmm….1975, I think, when I organized some anti-tax protests in Los Angeles. The Scientologists were bitterly anti-IRS, which just might have been because of the agency’s refusal to certify them as a religion for tax purposes, and were willing to be supportive of any criticism of the agency. One of their local leaders was a man named Heber Jentzsch, who was helpful. He kept mentioning how I might benefit from Scientology. I made a simple deal: I paid $25 to attend a course, on the grounds that if I liked it, he’d have a convert, but if I didn’t, I never, ever wanted to hear about it again. I went to one evening, concluded that they were flakes (when I disagreed with some of the teachings that were offered, the instructor kept asking what word in the sentence by L. Ron Hubbard I didn’t understand, and at the end we were asked to touch each other, followed by the hippy-ish lady who was running the program surprising me by putting her index finger into my mouth! I told her to keep her fingers where they belong and left.). Jentzsch kept his word. (He is now president of the whole outfit.)

Out of Control Prosecutors

The abuse of the legal system by prosecutor Mike Nifong in North Carolina is not an isolated case, as Jonathan Turley shows in today’s Washington Post, “Lots of Prosecutors Go Too Far. Most Get Away With It.”

Prosecutors are sworn to protect the rights of the accused as well as the accuser, to refuse to pursue cases that would not serve the interests of justice. Yet in today’s environment, it appears that prosecutors can never be too tough, the way models can never be too skinny.

A Little More Suffering, Please

This keeps going, and the story gets worse and worse for Nifong,” said CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin. “So I’m tempted to say he’s suffered enough. He’s lost his job, he’s lost his law license. But every time another thing comes up in this case, Nifong seems to lose again.”

The now-disbarred and disgraced prosecutor ought to compensate the players he accused and whom he tried to railroad for the harm he caused to them. And then he should slink off of the public stage for good.

Andrew Sullivan Sums It Up

If they were captured by someone, they must be guilty, right? And if they’re guilty, then anything goes. And if they confess to anything after months of torment, then it just goes to show that they must have been guilty.

There are reasons for procedural safeguards and for at least some judicial review. The Bush administration has demonstrated that, at least.

Irrationality Married to Cruelty

Slaves to the goddess of fertility.

If the Defense Lawyers Do Their Jobs, Arrest or Disbar the Lawyers!

“Russia’s Champion of Hopeless Cases Is Targeted for Disbarment.”

Spread the Word for Freedom of Speech: "Free Kareem" E-Cards

You can send a message of freedom to a friend and let them know about a victim of censorship who needs their help with the “Free Kareem” E-Card System.

And the State of Liberty in America.....

Void Where Prohibited by Law

The eroding state of civil liberties in America in the face of the “War on Terror” is laid out quite neatly in this Podcast interview with Bruce Fein.

An Appeal to President Mubarak

Yet Another Slander on the KGB

What must the Fever Swamp be thinking now? (A Russian former KGB officer should be charged with the murder by poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, the UK’s director of public prosecutions has recommended.) How will they save their heroic Eurasian political leader from such slander? Stay tuned…..

Aide to Refugees from Mugabe's Tyranny

Here’s an invitation to all who’d like to help the victims fleeing from the socialist meltdown of Zimbabwe. The event will be held June 1 in Washington, D.C. If you can’t attend but would like to help poor and hungry people fleeing a mad tyrant, write to zimrelief@gmail.com and they’ll tell you how you can help.

How It's Done

Theft on a truly astounding scale.

Aggression against Estonia, a formerly occupied but now independent nation.

Politically motivated trade embargoes against formerly occupied but now independent nations, Poland, Georgia, and Moldova (the latter two still partly occupied).