Freespace

Osiris

My poem “Osiris” is in the new issue of Pulsebeat, just published.

“Because it is there”

The new issue of Reason Papers features a symposium on the ideas of Philippa Foot and Ayn Rand. I was honored to be invited to contribute, and my article examines how aspiration and inspiration work in the philosophies of these two fascinating thinkers. Simply put: is “because it is there” sufficient reason for climbing a mountain? Read on…

Talking with Matt Rousu about the right to earn a living

I talked the other day with Professor Matt Rousu of Susquehanna University about the right to earn a living--why it's such an important part of human freedom and how why it's so frequently under assault. The interview is cut up into a few segments, which you can watch part one here:

and part two here:

Upcoming speaking events

Here's the latest list of my upcoming speaking events. Remember, if you're interested in having me come speak at your campus or to your community group, drop me a line!

Sept. 18 - 10:30 a.m. - 7 p.m. Eastern time - The Indian Child Welfare Act: why Brackeen is not the end of the story - Cato Institute Supreme Court conference - Washington, D.C.

Sept. 27 - 5:00 p.m. - Freedom's Furies - Lincoln Club - Orange County, CA [cancelled]

Oct. 17 - TBD - Freedom's Furies - ASU - Tempe, AZ

Oct. 27 - 4:45 p.m. - The role of equity in the definition of property rights - Brigham Kanner Property Rights Conference - Williamsburg, VA

Nov. 28 - 5:00 p.m. - Insiders, Outsiders, and the American Dream: Economic Freedom and Democratic Participation" - Memorial Union - ASU - Tempe, AZ

A chance to rein in the Administrative State’s tyranny?

I have an article in the Orange County Register today about the upcoming Chevron deference case that all the constitutional law nerds are excited about. Excerpt:

The classic 1970s cartoon “Schoolhouse Rock” taught a generation of American kids how a bill becomes a law: Congress debates proposed legislation and votes on it—and if the House and Senate approve, it’s sent to the White House. Then, if the president signs the bill, it goes into the statute books.

But the sad truth is that this simple process barely resembles how lawmaking actually works. In today’s world, most of the rules we must obey are created by unelected employees of the regulatory agencies often called the “Administrative State.” These unelected bureaucrats’ powers far exceed anything contemplated by the Constitution, and they’re subject to few of the checks and balances that the Founders thought essential to a healthy democracy.

The result is a system in which lawmaking occurs almost automatically, without meaningful input by voters or their representatives. No Californian, for example, thinks bees are a type of fish. Yet in 2019, regulators at the state’s Department of Fish and Game passed a rule classifying bees as fish. State law only lets those regulators pass rules for protecting fish, but the law also uses the word “invertebrates,” and since bees are invertebrates, department officials declared that they could therefore write rules about bees, too.

No voter ever thought the perfectly dry land that Mike and Chantelle Sackett bought in Idaho twenty years ago should be legally defined as “a water of the United States,” or that their effort to build a home should qualify as “water pollution.” But a single bureaucrat at the Environmental Protection Agency decided otherwise—leading to a decades-long legal battle that bankrupted the Sacketts even though they won.

No elected member of Congress ever decided to put a one-year limit on veterans applying for disability benefits. But in 2009, when National Guardsman Thomas Buffington applied for payments he was entitled to, he learned Veterans Administration officials had implemented a rule barring payments beyond “one year prior to the date” of an application.

In these and countless other cases, regulatory agencies have exploited vague or undefined words in laws, in order to give themselves power—power that derives not from “we, the people,” but from their own say-so. What’s worse, courts typically let them do it.

Read the rest...

Talking about the race preferences case with David Bernstein

I had a chance yesterday to talk about the Supreme Court's decision in the Harvard/UNC race preferences case with Professor David Bernstein, author of Classified: The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America (which I reviewed here). You can watch our conversation here:

Upcoming speaking events

Here's the latest list of my upcoming speaking events. Remember, if you're interested in having me come speak at your campus or to your community group, drop me a line!

July 11 - 1 p.m. Arizona time - Race Preferences: Past, Present, and Future webinar discussion with David E. Bernstein - online

Sept. 18 - 10:30 a.m. - 7 p.m. Eastern time - The Indian Child Welfare Act: why Brackeen is not the end of the story - Cato Institute Supreme Court conference - Washington, D.C.

Sept. 27 - 5:00 p.m. - Freedom's Furies - Lincoln Club - Orange County, CA

Oct. 27 - 4:45 p.m. - The role of equity in the definition of property rights - Brigham Kanner Property Rights Conference - Williamsburg, VA

Even Criminals Get Due Process. Why Don’t These Innocent Americans?

This fall the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case about civil asset forfeiture--actually, about one aspect of forfeiture, namely, whether you're entitled to a hearing on the question of whether the government can keep your stuff during the time it takes for a judge to decide whether they're allowed to take it. Suppose cops take your car. You're entitled to a trial on whether or not they had the right to do that. But a trial could take months or even years. What happens to the car in the meantime? That's the question the Court will decide--and the Goldwater Institute filed a brief yesterday urging the Court to give people a hearing on that question. We also took the opportunity to discuss the injustice of forfeiture more broadly, and to explore how America's founding fathers knew that forfeiture would undermine government's legitimacy and actually encourage lawbreaking. 

I have an article in Townhall.com today about the case. Here's an excerpt:

Perhaps worse than all of this is the way forfeiture undermines the legitimacy of law enforcement itself. When citizens see officers as profit-seeking predators rather than disinterested protectors, it generates resentment that can grow into what sociologists call “legal cynicism.” People become reluctant to call the police when in need, relying on vigilantes, instead—and they begin to sympathize with lawbreakers, sometimes helping them conceal their crimes. There’s nothing new about this: in 1790, James Wilson, a signer of the Constitution, warned that forfeiture is so unjust that people view it with “sentiments of pain and disgust”—sentiments which eventually lead them to engage in “a deadly feud with the state.”

The pendente lite principle adds still more injury: it lets officials keep property before that confiscation has even been deemed legal—which can take a long time. That means that even if the owner ends up winning her case and getting her property back, the delay may have rendered it worthless. In one case, prosecutors tried to seize an entire company pendente lite, promising that they’d return it if the court later decided the taking was invalid. The court rejected that notion, pointing out that “the business itself would at that point be drained of any good will by the summary closing, because the old customers would by then have resorted to new places.”

Read the rest...

What Brackeen decided and what remains to be decided

I had the honor yesterday of speaking at the Arizona Judicial Conference about the Brackeen decision and the issues that remain to be resolved in Indian Child Welfare Act litigation. You can listen here. (It's about 15 minutes.)

Supreme Court decision means crimes against Native American children continue

I have an article in today's Washington Times about the Supreme Court's decision in Brackeen to turn away the constitutional challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act. Excerpt:

The ruling marks just the latest injustice inflicted on Native Americans by the federal government--done, as usual, in the name of "helping" them.... [T]he rules this law imposes are actually less protective than the laws that apply to other children. The Indian Child Welfare Act overrides the ancient "best interests of the child" rule and imposes a provision called "active efforts," which forces state child welfare officers to return abused Indian children to the families that have abused them--a rule that doesn't apply to White, Black, Asian, or Hispanic children. The result, in case after case, has been the preventable beating, molestation, and murder of Native American children whom state officials knew to be at risk.

Read the rest...