Category Archives: Private Property

Updated: Race, Reason, & Unreason

Law, libertarianism, Private Property, Race, Reason, Regulation

Ronald Bailey of Reason Magazine details the reaction of “Conservative” blogger Ann Althouse to a debate about the infringements by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on property rights and freedom of association. The discussion took place at a Liberty Fund colloquium.

Broadly speaking, the topic falls perfectly within the purview of the conference, which aims to “shed light on the role of liberty in human life,” to quote Bailey. Speaking specifically, this conference tackled the role of federalism in freedom. Read Bailey’s most reasonable entry here. And follow the links to Althouse’s response.

(Althouse, incidentally, is competing for the title “Grande Conservative Blogress Diva,” the sort of communal enforcement bloggers engage in, much like mainstream media. They too are always awarding their own for conformity. I digress, but, in any event, that’s the string of honorifics explained.)

I too attended a Liberty Fund colloquium in the UK earlier this year, but none of the participants dissolved into a puddle, a la Althouse, over disagreement. I had a jolly good time with some brilliant (and beautifully spoken) Englishmen and (two) women.

As for tearing up and labeling as racists proponents of states’ rights or advocates of freedom of association, as Althouse apparently did, why, this only indicates Liberty Fund is not selecting its participants very carefully. Althouse reached for the smelling salts instead of arguing her case. How feeble. How Peggy Noonan.

Can there be any doubt that civil rights laws coerce individuals, often against their better judgment, into involuntary associations? Can one deny that under antidiscrimination law employers have lost a great deal of control over their businesses? Is it not the duty of reasonable, freedom-loving people to explore the effects on liberty of such legislation?

As I told the conservative Comanche, Dr. David Yeagley, “race is intricately and ineluctably tied to freedom because we live under a state which circumscribes liberty by enforcing codes of hiring, firing, renting, and money lending, among others. In a truly free society, the kind we once enjoyed, one honors the right of the individual to associate and disassociate, invest and disinvest, speak and misspeak at will. Race has become such an issue because we labor under nominal property ownership, and are subject to what is flippantly called political correctness, but is in fact codified and legalized theft and coercion.”

Althouse accuses libertarians of the sin of abstraction. If anything, Althouse’s formulations rely on the idea that America is merely a proposition, bound to abstract ideals, rather than a community of flesh-and-blood individuals, each with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and property.

Update: James Wilson (scroll down to the comments) contends that Althouse’s apoplexy over the exercise of individual liberty is a hangover from “the influence of the Christian Right on conservatism, [whereby] government’s role is to stamp out evil, pure and simple. And since racism is evil, the federal government must do something about it, just like it must fight drugs, pornography, obesity, etc.”
I’m not convinced. I would say (as I did in this January 29, 2003 column) that, neoconservatives, being “‘illiterate leftists posturing as conservatives’ have, largely, helped make Martin Luther King Jr. more important, historically, than the Founding Fathers. They’ve also helped conflate the messages of the two solitudes, even though the Founders’ liberty” is unrelated to the egalitarianism promoted by the commie King.

Letter of the Week: Your Home is the Government’s Castle’ By Carolus

Drug War, Private Property

I have very ambivalent feelings about drug legalization, though I can certainly understand the arguments that have been advanced for it in libertarian circles. The thing I oppose here is the destruction of the fourth amendment that this type of thing represents and the gross abuse of such ‘no-knock’ warrants by prosecutors, judges, and police.

Such warrants are routinely sought by careerist DA’s, rubber-stamped by moronic judges, and carried out with blind stupidity by police. The list of innocent victims of such abuse grows every day. While there might be a rare in extremis instance where such a raid might possibly be justified (against a cell of jihadis preparing an terrorist attack, for example), that’s not what’s going on day after day in city after city.

Instead, we end up with innocent victims of prosecutorial, judicial, and police misconduct and incompetence, for whom there is zero recourse. Yes, there will no doubt be an official investigation and yes, no doubt the shooting of the 92-year-old woman will be ruled “justified.” It’s as predictable as the sun rising in the east. I think a more appropriate response for this type of wanton stupidity would be: 1) the summary dismissal with prejudice of the officers involved (meaning they will never wear a badge again); 2) the removal of the prosecutor who sought the warrant; 3) the summary removal of the jurist who signed the warrant. In all, the guilty parties should have their careers ruined for good.

If a doctor screws up and kills a patient, the odds are high that he will be carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey by hungry trial lawyers via malpractice suits. If prosecutors, judges, and police screw up and an innocent person dies, they are all quite immune from lawsuits since they are acting in official capacity as government employees.

–CAROLUS

Letter of the Week: Your Home is the Government's Castle' By Carolus

Drug War, Private Property

I have very ambivalent feelings about drug legalization, though I can certainly understand the arguments that have been advanced for it in libertarian circles. The thing I oppose here is the destruction of the fourth amendment that this type of thing represents and the gross abuse of such ‘no-knock’ warrants by prosecutors, judges, and police.

Such warrants are routinely sought by careerist DA’s, rubber-stamped by moronic judges, and carried out with blind stupidity by police. The list of innocent victims of such abuse grows every day. While there might be a rare in extremis instance where such a raid might possibly be justified (against a cell of jihadis preparing an terrorist attack, for example), that’s not what’s going on day after day in city after city.

Instead, we end up with innocent victims of prosecutorial, judicial, and police misconduct and incompetence, for whom there is zero recourse. Yes, there will no doubt be an official investigation and yes, no doubt the shooting of the 92-year-old woman will be ruled “justified.” It’s as predictable as the sun rising in the east. I think a more appropriate response for this type of wanton stupidity would be: 1) the summary dismissal with prejudice of the officers involved (meaning they will never wear a badge again); 2) the removal of the prosecutor who sought the warrant; 3) the summary removal of the jurist who signed the warrant. In all, the guilty parties should have their careers ruined for good.

If a doctor screws up and kills a patient, the odds are high that he will be carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey by hungry trial lawyers via malpractice suits. If prosecutors, judges, and police screw up and an innocent person dies, they are all quite immune from lawsuits since they are acting in official capacity as government employees.

–CAROLUS

Drug-War Goons Gun Down Granny

Criminal Injustice, Drug War, Private Property

It goes without saying that the late Kathryn Johnston, a heroic 92-year-old pistol packing Atlanta resident, had every right and reason to open fire on the goons who were in the process of breaking down her front door. But they were the law, so they shot her dead.

Armed to the teeth, wearing bulletproof riot vests, and carrying riot shields, these big, “brave” men killed a very old lady in her own home. She was armed with a “rusty old revolver,” meant to repel the neighborhood rapists and drug dealers.

The goons have backup. Although neighbors say Miss Johnston lived alone, the Assistant Chief of the Atlanta Police Department and the County district attorney are claiming their “undercover officers bought illegal drugs from a man at the house in the afternoon and the officers returned in the evening to execute a ‘no knock’ warrant, which is used in cases where officers believe that a suspect may have time to hide evidence or escape if given time to answer the door…”

According to FMNN columnist, Radley Balko

a ‘no-knock’ raid occurs when police forcibly enter a private residence without first knocking and announcing that they’re the police. These raids are often launched on tips from notoriously unreliable confidential informants. Rubber-stamp judges, dicey informants, and aggressive policing have thus given rise to the countless examples of ‘wrong door’ raids we read about in the news. In fact, there’s a disturbingly long list of completely innocent people who’ve been killed in ‘wrong door’ raids.
No-knock raids are typically carried out by masked, heavily armed SWAT teams using paramilitary tactics more appropriate for the battlefield than the living room. No-knock raids have been justified on the flimsiest of reasons, including that the suspect was a licensed, registered gun owner (NRA, take note!)

Basically, the protocol followed is for the police to announce themselves, wait a couple of seconds, and then force the door. Imagine how scared and confused a 92-year-old woman would have been. She probably knew nothing about the “no-knock” abomination and failed to spot the “comforting” sight of the marked patrol car in front of the home she thought was her castle, but was in fact the government’s.