Freespace

Timbs: A victory for due process of law

In my latest "Find The Good And Praise It" article in The Objective Standard focuses on this week's victory for individual rights in the Timbs case. Excerpt:

Tyson Timbs was arrested for drug possession in Indiana, and police sought to seize his car—worth four times the fine he faced. The Supreme Court was asked to decide whether that punishment deprived him of property without “due process of law”—in other words, whether it was so harsh as to violate “established principles of private right.” The Court answered yes. “The protection against excessive fines,” it ruled, “has been a constant shield throughout Anglo-American history.” And political considerations—particularly the risk that extreme fines can be used “to coerce involuntary labor” or “retaliate against or chill the speech of political enemies”—warrant placing protection against excessive fines among the rights considered “fundamental to our scheme of ordered liberty,” and protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.

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Joseph Conrad: no faltering, no shame, no regret

My latest Objective Standard article looks at Maya Jasanoff's new book about Joseph Conrad. Excerpt:

Conrad did not deny but rather highlighted the humanity of Africans and warned against supposed apostles of progress who became oppressors by depriving people of freedom for “their own good.” He did this with a linguistic splendor no writer has matched. Conrad’s rich, reverberating sentences and complex, multilayered flashbacks place Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, and Nostromo among the most technically innovative novels ever written. They envelop the reader in the suspense of grand tragedy, or the intoxication of wholehearted love—and transport him to a realm where people, though denied triumph, can still achieve greatness. Steeped in an often disconcerting pessimism, Conrad’s tales are populated by characters who strive against forces destined to defeat them—who are vindicated only by the grace with which they confront their fate. His bittersweet stories are a gloomy sort of romanticism that simultaneously celebrates heroes and bemoans them as doomed. And it’s all conveyed in some of the most exquisite prose ever attempted.

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Which matters more? Children, or the color line?

I have an article in The Daily Caller this week about the ongoing litigation over the Indian Child Welfare Act. Excerpt:

ICWA also imposes separate rules for child welfare cases involving “Indian children” — rules that are less protective than the laws that apply to other kids. For example, when a child of another race is abused, state officials can place him in foster care with a family that can protect him, regardless of their ethnicity. But Indian children must be placed in foster care with other “Indian” adults, even if they’re of an entirely different tribe. It also mandates that Indian children be adopted by “Indian” families, regardless of tribe, rather than by adults of other ethnicities. That means an Inuit child must be placed with a Seminole family instead of a white or black family — despite the enormous differences between those two tribes’ histories and cultures.

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Migrators

The new online journal, The Agonist, has published my poem, “Migrators.” You can read it here.