On Monday the Supreme Court in United States v. Comstock, held that Congress has the power under the Necessary and Proper Clause of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution to enact 18 U.S.C. § 4248.  Section 4248 authorizes court-ordered civil commitment by the federal government of two categories of “sexually dangerous” persons: (1) “sexually dangerous” persons who are already in custody of the Bureau of Prisons, but who are coming to the end of their federal prison sentences, and (2) “sexually dangerous” persons who are in the custody of the Attorney General because they have been found mentally incompetent to stand trial. 

Justice Thomas in dissent makes a strong case that this civil commitment statute exceeds Congress’ powers inasmuch as it does not carry into execution any enumerated power.  Thomas agrees the government may pass criminal laws to prohibit conduct that interferes with enumerated powers, establish prisons for those who engage in that conduct, and set rules for the care and treatment of prisoners awaiting trial or serving a criminal sentence.  He gives the example of the postal clause and how it is necessary and proper to pass laws to protect the mails and to house defendants in federal prisons when they steal mail.  However, he denies a general police power where the government can keep an inmate in custody long after the inmate’s sentence has expired on the grounds that the inmate is sexually dangerous and might commit further crimes.  This, according to Thomas, cannot be traced back to an enumerated power.  He urges that the commitment issue should be left to the state jurisdiction in which the defendant will be released.  The opinions are worth a read.

Attending the Fourth International Conference on Climate Change, I was surprised by the response Stephen McIntyre, primary author of the Climate Audit blog, and early exposer of Michael Mann’s fraudulent “hockey stick” graph (and continuing exposer of the numerous additional “hockey sticks“), gave to a question as to how he got involved in this whole area. It turns out he hadn’t even heard of the IPCC until 2002, when he got interested in the subject during a conversation with a geologist friend. And, contrary to the “Climategate” emails from which one would deduce McIntyre to be a dangerous ideologue from whom information must be hidden, it turns out he was and is totally disinterested in the political implications of climate research, and would in fact support governmental involvement as legitimate.

Rather, he was struck when he read the material his friend had told him about by its hockey stick graph, because as a mining stock analyst he was familiar with the irregularity of such a sudden, extraordinarily rising curve. He had previously seen graphs depicting such a rapid swing from flat to a dramatically rising curve only in projections made by dot-com start-ups, and he knew that such an extreme swing could only be plotted based on wildly unlikely assumptions. He thus submitted a very respectful request to Mann and the preeminent Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (CRU) for their underlying data. And the rest, most fortunately, is now history.

Mr. McIntyre recommends the following as the most cogent explanation of Mann’s creative methodology that he subsequently exposed:

Surprisingly, McIntyre defends Mann and his colleagues from accusations of fraud, apparently because they weren’t utilizing their “tricks” to sell stock. He unfortunately fails to recognize that the taxpayers whose money has and continues to be stolen in order to support their work have been defrauded, or that which would be perpetrated upon the millions whose lives would be destroyed should the policies such data is designed to support be implemented. I find it extraordinary that someone who has as doggedly pursued and uncovered so much brazen dishonesty—and who has been viciously attacked in the process—would retain such a view, but despite our philosophical differences, Steve McIntyre is a genuine hero and well deserves the standing ovation the audience of 800 gave him.

In an excellent article in the American Spectator, British philosopher and author Sir Roger Scruton discusses his superb new documentary, Why Beauty Matters, that has recently been shown on the BBC. Scruton incisively examines the importance of beauty in the arts and our lives, including fine arts, music, and architecture. In the process, he illuminates the poverty, dehumanization and fraud of modernist and post-modernist cynicism, reductionism and nihilism. Scruton discusses how the human aspiration and longing for truth, goodness and beauty are universal and fundamentally important and that the value of anything is not utilitarian and without meaning (e.g., Oscar Wilde’s claim that “All art is absolutely useless.”). Human beings are not purposeless material objects for mechanistic manipulation by others, and civil society itself depends upon a cultural consensus that beauty is real and every person should be respected with compassion as having dignity and nobility with very real spiritual needs to encounter and be transformed and uplifted by beauty.

Here is the video:

Please also see the following books:

Beauty, by Roger Scruton

Culture Counts: Faith and Feeling in a World Besieged, by Roger Scruton

Modern Culture, by Roger Scruton

The Abolition of Man, by C.S. Lewis

The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature, by C.S. Lewis

The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition, by C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis as Philosopher: Truth, Goodness and Beauty, edited by David J. Baggett, Gary R. Habermas and Jerry L. Walls

HT: José Yulo

Art Carden speaking @ In Defense of Capitalism conference from Nicki Brøchner on Vimeo.

The Supreme Court decided an 8th Amendment case today, Graham v. Florida. The Court held that the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause does not permit a juvenile offender to be sentenced to life in prison without parole for a nonhomicide crime.  While reasonable people can agree or disagree with the Court’s decision as a matter of policy, we should be concerned that the Court makes such calls rather than the people’s elected representatives. 

I highly recommend Justice Thomas’s dissent.  Here is a snippet:

The ultimate question in this case is not whether a life-without-parole sentence ‘fits’ the crime at issue here or the crimes of juvenile nonhomicide offenders more generally, but to whom the Constitution assigns that decision. The Florida Legislature has concluded that such sentences should be available for persons under 18 who commit certain crimes, and the trial judge in this case decided to impose that legislatively authorized sentence here. Because a life-without-parole prison sentence is not a “cruel and unusual” method of punishment under any standard, the Eighth Amendment gives this Court no authority to reject those judgments.

Everyone knows that the United States of America is the greatest nation in human history. It is the land of the free and the home of the brave, whereas the people of other countries are for the most part caged and cowardly. So it comes as no surprise that the American people, being themselves so supremely admirable, have always advanced to positions of political and military leadership individuals who not only mirrored, but magnified the people’s own radiant character. But do not take my word for these leaders’ extraordinary virtues. Let their own words testify to their exemplary capacity to show the world just what Americans are made of. In regard to honesty, integrity, humanity, and selfless devotion to the general public interest, America’s leaders have always shined like beacons in a dark and depraved world.

*     *     *

Your people, sir, is a great beast.
     ― Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, 1792

I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.
     ― U.S. Senate candidate Abraham Lincoln, 1858

We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children.
     ― General William Tecumseh Sherman, 1866

It may be necessary to kill half the Filipinos in order that the remaining half of the population may be advanced to a higher plane of life than their present semi-barbarous state affords.
     ― Major General William Shafter, 1899

Just because we fight without rancor and without selfish object, seeking nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share with all free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as belligerents without passion and ourselves observe with proud punctilio the principles of right and of fair play we profess to be fighting for.
     ― President Woodrow Wilson, 1917

I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again; your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.
     ― President Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1940

The question was how we should maneuver them [the Japanese armed forces] into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves.
     ― Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, 1941

We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.
     ― President Lyndon B. Johnson, 1964

John [Erhlichman], we have the power. Are we using it now to investigate contributors to Hubert Humphrey, contributors to Muskie―the Jews, you know, that are stealing in every direction? Are we going after their tax returns? I can only hope that we are, frankly, doing a little persecuting.
     ― President Richard M. Nixon, 1971

Money talks and bullshit walks.
     ― Congressman Michael Myers, 1979

Bitch set me up . . . . I shouldn’t have come up here . . . goddamn bitch.
     ― D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, 1990

I did not have sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinski.
     ― President Bill Clinton, 1998

There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more. And he has the ability to dispense these lethal poisons and diseases in ways that can cause massive death and destruction.  … Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough agent to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets. Even the low end of 100 tons of agent would enable Saddam Hussein to cause mass casualties across more than 100 square miles of territory, an area nearly five times the size of Manhattan. … Let me turn now to nuclear weapons. We have no indication that Saddam Hussein has ever abandoned his nuclear weapons program. On the contrary, we have more than a decade of proof that he remains determined to acquire nuclear weapons. … Iraq could use these small UAVs which have a wingspan of only a few meters to deliver biological agents to its neighbors or, if transported, to other countries, including the United States. … Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi an associate and collaborator of Usama bin Laden and his al-Qaida lieutenants. … We are not surprised that Iraq is harboring Zarqawi and his subordinates. This understanding builds on decades-long experience with respect to ties between Iraq and al-Qaida. … Leaving Saddam Hussein in possession of weapons of mass destruction for a few more months or years is not an option, not in a post-September 11th world.
     ― Secretary of State Colin Powell, 2003

Here’s Peter Klein’s new book The Capitalist and the Entrepreneur, also available for $0 download from Mises.org.

The Capitalist and and the Entrepreneur: Essays on Organizations and Markets

Obama’s promised “unofficial budget” of $1 trillion over 10 years for his health care overhaul has already been busted, according to this AP story today:

Spending not accounted for in its original estimates could bring the total price tag for the healthcare reform law to more than $1 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Good news for bureaucrats and supporters of the police state:

Federal agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will likely spend $10 billion to $20 billion over the next 10 years to implement the law, CBO director Doug Elmendorf said in a letter to Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), who requested the revised estimate.

Note that Rep. Lewis’s request had been made before the House voted on the bill. Having failed to receive the requested information, he wrote Speaker Pelosi:

“[L]arge sums of discretionary spending in both the House and Senate versions of the health care reform bills have not yet been included in estimates by the CBO, rendering it impossible to make informed decisions regarding the outcome of this legislation,” Lewis wrote in a February letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, asking her to postpone votes until the discretionary spending analysis was complete.

With this much error four years before the bill’s major components even go into effect, one’s imagination boggles at what’s ahead:

Congressional estimators also said they hadn’t had enough time to run the numbers. Costs could go higher, because the legislation authorizes several programs without setting specific funding levels.

Why is liberty always on trial? Why does the burden of proof rest with freedom, private property, and voluntary exchange rather than coercion, socialized property, and compulsory exchange? Why is the assumption or assertion that some people should govern others almost always implicit in the discussion?

Cross-posted at the Mises Blog.

2000 watt camping generators are advertised at Aldi for about $150.  That got me thinking about ways to evade price gouging laws in Gulf Coast states.  Rather than speculate, I sent the following email to Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum via his website:

Greetings,

This is not a complaint.  I hope you can assist me with an example I want to do in the Economics 100 class I teach at Rhodes College.  Recently, 2000-watt camping generators have been advertised at a Memphis Aldi for $150.  Suppose I purchased their stock of generators at the retail price and then advertised them in Florida newspapers for $1000 each for the next several months.  If Florida is hit by a hurricane, I would then mark down the generators to $750 each—a 25% discount compared to my original $1000 per generator asking price.  Would I run afoul of Florida’s price gouging laws by offering the generators at a 25% discount relative to my original asking price?  Thank you for your time and consideration.

Kindest regards,

Art Carden
Assistant Professor of Economics and Business
Rhodes College
Memphis, TN

Cross-posted at Division of Labour.  I’ll blog his office’s response if they will give me permission.