This sad story reminds me of the many tragedies that were played out around the Boston area during the 1970 and '80s. The FBI agents in charge of investigating organized crime in the area ended up being close personal friends with Whitey Bulger and Stephen Flemmi--two of the most violent mob bosses in the city. They protected Bulger and Flemmi from all harm while occasionally taking down low-level players that the two mob bosses would set up. In all, I think Bulger's Irish mob murdered around 30 or more people during the period while the FBI made big headlines by taking down mob killers of 2 or 3 people. FBI special agents even tipped off Flemmi and Bulger whenever a mob rat surfaced who started talking about them. Sure enough, in each case, the rat was soon missing.

The only people actively prosecuted by the FBI "organized crime" unit in Boston were whistleblowers and rivals of the favored informant bosses. One innocent couple who had suffered from Bulger's extortion were prosecuted for perjury for falsely stating that Bulger had not stolen their liquor store from them, when in fact he had.

--Roger Roots

The Constitution is actually fairly clear about holding people for criminal prosecution. Without probable cause to arrest, indictment by a grand jury, and access to counsel, the government simply cannot hold them. The only exceptions are in a military theater, where enemy forces can be held in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, the Code of Military Justice, etc.

Because everyone now admits that the "live battle" exception is inapplicable at this point (if it ever was), the inmates need to be released unless there is probable cause, grand jury indictment, etc. (which there isn't). And, of course, their "speedy trial clocks" have already tolled. Release them.

-- Roger Roots

It needs to be repeated that the entire notion of a "state secrets" doctrine was invented by the government in the early 1950s to cover up their negligence in a plane crash case in Georgia. The Justice Department claimed that its accident reports of the crash would reveal sensitive intelligence secrets. The actual reports were never viewed by any judge, but the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the "state secrets" invention in the case. The case was called United States v. Reynolds (1953).

Years later, descendants of the original victims obtained the accident reports and they showed no "intelligence" information whatsoever. Thus, it is a doctrine based on fraud from the very beginning. Why do we not hear the self-proclaimed "strict constructionists" discussing this?

--Roger Roots

I really can't blame women for keeping silent about their abortions. They are surrounded by people who fully intend to put them in prison or execute them if they ever overturn Roe v. Wade. Even people who claim to be for limited government and to oppose the increasing police state often take the pro-police position on abortion issues.

--Roger Roots

"all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." Thomas Jefferson, July 4, 1776. (No one ever said it better).

I guess I am a "perennial enemy" of Social Security, but not only because of its misbalancing of payments and future unfunded liabilities. "America's most effective and efficient universal social insurance program," as Mr. Lind laughingly describes it, is actually a very ineffective and inefficient universal program. (I won't give it the honor of being an insurance program, because it were, it would violate insurance regulations in all 50 states and its administrators would be prosecuted for running a ponzi scheme.) Social Security is a program that takes money from poor working people by force and transfers it to less poor, nonworking people--all in the name of helping the poor! Just look at demographic data for the U.S. population; the average American 65 and older has a higher net worth than the average American under 65. Social Security is a transfer from poor to less poor, nothing more. It takes money from people's checks when they can least afford to lose it, when they are working hard, renting, and trying to raise families.

Poor people generally start their working lives at a younger age than richer people, and they often retire later. Moreover, their average life expectancy is lower than wealthier Americans. This means that they must pay more into Social Security relative to their ultimate payouts than do richer people. Of course such a program is always popular among voters--who are disproportionately older and wealthier than nonvoters.

It is not only "the right" that should criticize Social Security. "The left" should criticize it as well.

Rarely have I read so many economic myths in a single book review. The truth is that the design and engineering of consumer goods and other products has been generally improving for generations, and probably since the beginning of written communication. This is true even though prices have been going down (measured by the actual hours we all have to work to afford such products).

I remember copy machines I used as a kid that jammed at the drop of a hat; now you can drop a wrinkled stack of coffee-stained papers on the top of any copy machine at Kinkos and have perfectly-collated copies almost instantly. Butterfinger candy bars used to break into numerous pieces before you unwrapped them; now they are packaged in two segments to prevent such problems. There never was a time when fine "craftmanship" governed the manufacture of most consumer goods. Most of the furniture and cooking utensils our forefathers used were crap.

Chinese workers have migrated from farms to factories because they have generally found they live better lives as factory workers than they did as peasant farmers.

I could go on and on, but I doubt I would change the mind of anyone who rejects the law of supply and demand and the opportunities offered by free markets