“Quacking Over Ducksters, As Freedoms Go POOF” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

“While the nation fretted over the ouster of one Duckster from the parallel reality of a TV reality show, more of the protections enshrined in the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution evaporated.

Just after Christmas, district-court Judge William Pauley ruled that the privacy protections afforded by the Constitution were relative freedoms, not absolutes ones. As such, Fourth-Amendment rights had to be calibrated against a government’s need to maintain a database of records that would (putatively) prevent future terrorist attacks. …

… This is the inglorious history of American freedom and federalism. In the rare event that the Supreme Court refuses to play along (as nicely as plaything Justice John G. Roberts did for ObamaCare)—there is always a perfectly legal, extra-constitutional, quasi-legislative, quasi-executive, quasi-judicial, “independent” regulatory commission or executive agency to kill off or override constitutional protections.

A “civil liberties officer,” for example.

The nice men in periwigs who came up with the Fourth Amendment were recklessly naive to imagine that branches of a government, each of whose power is enhanced when the power of the other branches grows, would serve to check one another. The idea of a judiciary that would police the executive as an arm of a self-correcting tripartite government was worse than naive.

As “luck” would have it, legislation that flouts the Fourth Amendment was previously in place to provide Pauley with all the positive-law backing the judge needed to justify an anti-constitutional ruling. To wit, the grounds upon which the New York jurist dismissed this ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) case against the NSA were, primarily, “that bulk collection was [already] authorized under existing laws allowing ‘relevant’ data collection to be authorized by secret US courts.”

Here you have the essence of modern-day, Managerial-State America. Natural law, common-law and Constitution have been nullified; buried under the rubble of legislation, statute, precedent, ad infinitum, rights having long-since been outsourced to the “better” judgment of bureaucrats and hired “experts.”

In this case, to Eric Holder’s Department of Justice. …

Read the complete column. “Quacking Over Ducksters, As Freedoms Go POOF” is on WND.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION:

• At the WND Comments Section. Scroll down and “Say it.”

• On my Facebook page.

• By clicking to “Like,” “Tweet” and “Share” this week’s “Return To Reason” column.

If you’d like to feature this column, WND’s longest-standing, exclusive paleolibertarian column, in or on your publication (paper or pixels), contact ilana@ilanamercer.com.

UPDATE (1/3): Someone is guilty of a performative contradiction. In any event, I’m glad I have not lost the reader who claims he is lost to me. From the COMMENTS @ WMD:

Nys Parkie
• 12 hours ago

Mercer lost me. Was a fan. Now her libertarian squeamish mish-mash of words only offend me. Her article on hunting cut the cord. I, as a conservative libertarian only have this response. Let me live as I choose and don’t demonize me for it. Maybe you (Her) is some type of PETA Vegan in disguise, I don’t know. Hate your mirror and not me.

Reply
Spyker May Nys Parkie
• 10 hours ago

Nys..,

You cannot chastise Ilana for your lack of command of the national language of the USA. She uses no words not from a good dictionary – the only “mish-mash” is the pancake between your ears.

As far as being ‘offended’ – kindly consider carefully what is ostensibly ‘arrogance’ and what is de facto personal insecurities.

To follow Ms Mercer demands no greater effort than reading through ATLAS SHRUGGED in a week…