In the 1990s, I read an interview with a rock star optimistic about the country’s direction. He thought President Clinton’s admission to having tried marijuana was a good sign. America was becoming more socially liberal. The new generation was in charge. And as one consequence, maybe the disastrous war on drugs would end. Not...
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Twenty years ago today, an FBI sniper shot Vicki Weaver in the head as she held her ten-month-old baby at her home in Ruby Ridge, Idaho. The sniper also shot her husband Randy Weaver in the back, trying to kill him. Their son was shot in the back and killed the day before by U.S....
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Sixty-seven years ago, World War II ended. In Japan, today’s date is officially designated “the day for mourning of war dead and praying for peace” (戦歿者を追悼し平和を祈念する日 Senbotsusha wo tsuitōshi heiwa wo kinensuru hi?). In the USA, it is called V-J Day, but few people any longer take much note of it. All wars are...
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If airports had barn doors, TSA certainly would have closed the one in Newark, with great certitude and force, on Sunday. As it is, they simply shut down the entire airport, resulting in the delay of 65 flights and cancellation of another 100—after an unidentified suspicious woman had not only already boarded her flight...
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Much has been written about Penn State and the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal, but I want to mention two aspects about it that have been on my mind. The first one is the idea of institutional culpability. Jerry Sandusky has already been convicted for his actions, and when they came to light,...
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A few months ago I wrote about U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito’s take on the Obama administration’s arguments for the Medicaid expansion—a provision of the President’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Justice Alito offered U.S. Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., the hypothetical example of a “federal education tax,” saying:...
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Many years ago, in a book I’ve lost along the way (I believe it was A Primer on Social Dynamics), Kenneth Boulding described three basic ways in which a person, in the quest to get what he seeks, can approach other people. He can, as it were, say to them: (1) Do something nice...
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Proposition: Putative “public demand,” especially as expressed by voting, drives the political-governmental system. Elected officials and hence the bureaucracy subordinate to them may be viewed as perfect agents of the electorate. Adherence to this proposition characterizes the bulk of all analysis dealing with the growth of government in the West, regardless of analytical tradition...
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News reports inform us that members of the Scottish Parliament have for the first time voted in favor of Scotland becoming independent. Here is a snippet from the Stornoway Gazette: First Minister Alex Salmond hailed the vote, by 69 to 52, as a “milestone” in the country’s history. He also revealed that 15,000 people...
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The folks over at SCOTUS Blog have a good story up on a dispute between Rhode Island and the federal government concerning custody of state prisoner. Jason Pleau is in state custody but also under federal indictment for a robbery in which a person was killed. It is possible that Pleau could face the...
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