Letters to the Editor
DCLaw1
Published Letters: 861 Editor's Choice: 2
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arrenfrank
[Read the article: Ron Paul distortions and smears]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thanks. Was your mention of homunculus (one of my very favorite words) in any way an allusion to a post I made some time ago that so many neoconservatives look like homunculi?
In any event, your use of the word brought a smile to my face.
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Dirks
[Read the article: Ron Paul distortions and smears]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The fact that RP's constitutionalism fits nicely with the viewpoint of those who see the Civil Rights Act as an Unconstitutional encroachment of the Federal Government over States Rights end up meaning that racists will indeed gravitate toward his campaign whether he encourages it or not.
Reminds me a bit of a conversation I had with a friend of mine about the Civil War. We were talking about the view among some that the Civil War wasn't about slavery, but "economics" or "states' rights." He joked that when someone says that to him, he sarcastically retorts, "Right, the Confederacy was fighting for the right to coin its own currency."
Conservatives have no hesitation stating outright that a judge who finds that the Constitution provides a certain power or privilege that allows an outcome favored by liberals was not guided by a principled reading of the Constitution, but motivated solely by a blinding desire to achieve those liberal outcomes. But barely suggest that conservatives have similarly impure motives, and you will need smelling salts to bring them back from their feigned shock.
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Glenn's video update
[Read the article: Ron Paul distortions and smears]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Boy that guy in the audience they show at the end of Ron Paul's answer looks rather... unhappy.
I just want to say that I am not one of those people who think Glenn's discussions of Ron Paul amount to a shadow endorsement of him or all his views. I think Glenn's made it abundantly clear from the outset that he's talking about the effect and resonance of Mr. Paul's foreign policy and executive power views, and the underlying reason for that resonance.
Talking about any candidate during election season can be rather radioactive though. Glenn, if you would allow me one suggestion, I think there are enough people out there who understand what you are saying about Ron Paul that you need not accommodate each every protest against what they think you are saying.
I think that's probably how you feel anyway, but there's my proverbial two cents. I'm sure some will flame me for trying to "quiet dissent" or something.
It's been an enlivening conversation thus far. If I were even more cynical than I already am, I might even imagine you were bringing up Ron Paul again because every mere mention of him pushes your readership and comments through the roof!
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speak not ill words of Herr Scalia!
[Read the article: Ron Paul distortions and smears]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Arne:
Any constitutional scholar worth his or her salt will tell you that "textualists," "originalists," "strict constructionists," and the like can be every bit as arbitrary, inconsistent, and outcome-determinative as their much-maligned "living constitution" counterparts....
... as when Scalia insists that the Eleventh Amendment says precisely what it does not say, to wit that suits are barred against states by their own citizens (unless the states consent to such).
When we discussed those cases in law school, my head about exploded. At the same time, I felt a bitter sense of satisfaction that he was as much a hack as everyone he ridicules in his infamous dissents.
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Are all these Paul "supporters" paid by Paul's opponents?
[Read the article: Ron Paul distortions and smears]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What an obnoxious gaggle.
Property rights as the bulwark against environmental destruction. As property rights (and nuisance tort claims based on those rights) have been in existence since the beginnings of the republic, I'm sure we need only look to the periods of time prior to federal environmental intervention to see how successfully this means would work to protect the environment. Oh, perhaps people just weren't exercising their rights fervently enough. Yes, I see no problems whatsoever staking the health of our planet and biological systems on the vigor of private property owners.
Global warming. It is easily the worst environmental (perhaps existential) threat we face as a species. Sure, contaminated water tables and dying species are serious, but the potential consequences of continued global warming dwarf all others. I am curious how vindication of private property rights will ameliorate or stop these consequences from manifesting. If you think you have a pithy answer to that rhetorical question, might I suggest you do some research into tort law and the doctrines of remoteness and proximate cause. Yes, I'm quite sure the concept of greenhouse gases was not at the fore of the Founders' imaginations, or in Blackstone's ruminations.
Endangered species. Under a purist (Paulian?) understanding of property rights, all the species on one's land would be subject to that person's plenary discretion. And again, let's check the illustrious historical record of private property owners' defense of threatened species of toad and bug. "Damn you, your business is harming the bats on my land! I'll see you in court!"
Entrusting individuals to magnanimously protect things that are more profitable to exploit or ignore is a bit like entrusting the baron to champion the prosperity of the indentured servants that till his land. Such is the case when we take a long stroll into history while whistling past the lessons we already tried to learn from it.