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Last Friday, Jonah Goldberg wrote a post at The Corner arguing that there is something “unlibertarian” about opponents of drug prohibition who use claims about the drug war’s disproportionate effects on blacks in an attempt to demonstrate its injustice. This post prompted a lengthy response from Reason’s Jacob Sullum, who helpfully showed up Goldberg’s claim [...]
Filed under: civil liberties, libertarianism
Glenn Greenwald’s widely-cited post from over the weekend on Jim Webb’s courageous push for prison reform is a must-read. I especially liked this bit: Webb’s commitment to this unpopular project demonstrates how false that excuse-making [that says that taking bad but popular positions is necessary if one is to avoid political risk] is – just [...]
Filed under: civil liberties, economics, education, foreign affairs, government/law, politics, torture, war
As a strong supporter of the legalization of marijuana, I sympathize entirely with Freddie’s frustration with Obama’s craptastic take on the subject from Wednesday night’s “town hall” meeting. That said, I’ve got to get something off my chest. There is, I am comfortable saying, a whole host of good arguments in favor of legalizing pot. [...]
Filed under: civil liberties, government/law, libertarianism
First, from Paul Weyrich and William Lind’s forthcoming and decidedly un-libertarian The Next Conservatism, which I’m currently reviewing for ISI’s Intercollegiate Review: Local order depends on local police. The job of local police is not responding to crime, but prevent crime before it happens. Response comes too late; civic order has already been disrupted. Here [...]
Filed under: civil liberties, conservatism, government/law, libertarianism, politics
Via Thoreau, this is un all too believable: Just one day after George W. Bush left office, an NSA whistleblower has revealed that the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program targeted U.S. journalists, and vacuumed in all domestic communications of Americans, including, faxes, phone calls and network traffic. Russell Tice, a former NSA analyst, spoke [...]
Filed under: civil liberties
Radley Balko tallies up President Obama’s first orders of business, and pronounces himself a happy libertarian: Yes, it’s only been one day. But this is mighty impressive. Obama’s top priority upon taking office was to sign orders rolling back his predecessor’s expansion of executive power. Put another way, Obama’s top priority upon taking office was [...]
Filed under: civil liberties, government/law, libertarianism
Having watched the Balko-Freddoso convo last night, I’m pretty strongly inclined to agree with Conor that the most important question they discuss is that of whether it’s possible to enforce drug laws, or any laws against consensual behaviors for that matter, without feeding into cycles of police misconduct or the legally-sanctioned violation of civil liberties. [...]
Filed under: civil liberties, government/law
Given today’s main page topic, and the fact that many readers may be under the impression that only crazed libertarians are in favor of drug legalization, it seems worth linking to this 1996 National Review symposium on the War on Drugs. From the editors’ introduction: Things being as they are, and people as they are, [...]
Filed under: civil liberties, government/law
On the main page, there’s a must-read three-part symposium on legalization and the War on Drugs. Radley Balko’s piece on “collateral damage” is predictably excellent, and probably my favorite of the bunch, but Anita Bartholomew wins the prize for best rhetorical question: Do we really want to keep spending insane amounts of our dwindling government [...]
Filed under: civil liberties, government/law
It appears that Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) is getting ready to push for prison reform this upcoming Spring. It’s not clear exactly what form this push will take, but Webb’s views of the current situation are no secret – and also have the benefit of being accurate: Webb aims much of his criticism at enforcement [...]
Filed under: civil liberties, government/law, politics