From the "why even bother" files

Not really legally related but an interesting problem. California State Senator Alan Lowenthal feels that electric cars are too quiet and proposed a bill, which passed and is up with the governor.

It would establish a committee to study the issue and recommend ways the vehicles could make more noise. The recommendations would be due by 2010.

Now, I can surely think of one way for full electric cars to make noise. The concern is that blind and visually impaired people would not be able to hear a car approaching and could be hit. Here's my question: couldn't that be solved by regular tort liability? The car companies would be better at figuring out what's the appropriate noise level to do things, versus the state of California (potential for 50 different nonsensical state regulations as well).

If you think the problems we create are bad, just wait until you see our solutions

First of all, I love the new Despair, Inc. demotivator. I have a nice Government one sitting right on my desk.

Citizens from the city of Plainfield fought to keep a Wal-Mart and a Lowe's out. People wanted industry instead. They won and instead they got RPM Recycling, a metal-shredding plant that now creates noise like a freight train and frequent explosions. Now, of course, people want the city to stop the new plant. Wonder what will come next.

Goldwater the Neocon?

I've been reading Barry Goldwater's autobiography, and I was disturbed to find that he was against the War Powers Resolution, which allows the President to use military force for up to 60 days without Congressional approval. His main criticism is that this limits the President's power to wage war, and that the only constraint on the commander-in-chief power is when the voters kick him out.

I was very perplexed after reading this because Ron Paul has invoked Goldwater's name so many times. Despite Goldwater's views on reducing the size of government, he appears to have no problems with an expansive U.S. military force and Congress' inability to pass a declaration of war. Maybe Ron Paul needs to find a new historical figure to appeal to.

Death and Taxes

The traditional line is that only two things are inevitable, death and taxes. But according to George Will, this overlooks a key difference between the two: death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets.

And you can get good campaign mileage by inflating your resume

A find by Ricky, Obama has the solution to stop drilling in ANWAR.

Legally Changing Your Name

Eugene Volokh has an article about name changes that were so weird, the judge refused to grant them.

A different 'race to the bottom'

India historically had a huge ancient caste system, mostly in part due to implication from Hindu beliefs regarding reincarnation (think of it as an expansion of the European "Divine Right of Kings" concept). Once the British left, India formed a very socialist government, including a number of tiers for status, lower ones receiving more favorable quotas ("reservations") in education and public-sector jobs.

The problem is that India doesn't have the US equivalent of a Regents of the University of California v. Bakke so it actually is quotas. And these quotas are quite lucrative. In fact, last year there was riots in Rajasthan by "members of a caste who are demanding to be socially downgraded in order to gain government jobs and university places."

At the same time, there is a clear backlash going on (both in India and in elsewhere), but a bigger problem for India may be a reduction in standards to get those students in. In 2006, the government proposed a 27.5% quota for Other Backwards Classes (OBCs) on top of the 22.5% for the lower ranked "scheduled" castes. There were massive riots by doctors, lawyers, and students in response.

There is a clear self-interest in organizations getting themselves rated lower in status. In the US, this also shows up in which ethnic groups are separated out in race and ethnicity calculations. For example, should it be just Hispanics or split even further? USC does but most places I know of don't split Indian, Pakistani or Sri Lankan into a separate South Asian category.

Reading list experiment

Neil and I are planning on conducting a little experiment. Looking at Ron Paul book The Revolution, Paul finishes with a reading list of 48 books. We have taken a bet as to the number of books that are located at USC. The book must be physically located on the campus library to count.

Currently, we are 6 1/2 books, Neil taking 6 and under with myself taking 7 or over. Sadly, even with such a poor percentage, I suspect he may win.

I offer the comments for others to make bets and to offer other similar reading lists that may be of interest.

The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight was far more disturbing than I anticipated. The Joker is completely different from the Jack Nicholson version.

Reasons why I like the new Joker:

He burns big piles of money, so at least someone is trying to stop the inflation of the U.S. dollar.

He has a very strong understanding of game theory, notably the prisoner's dilemma

He pushes Batman to the edge and forces Batman to engage in warrantless wiretapping.

Wayne Allyn Root

"Get out your wallet. Look inside. Vote for me. And I promise to stay the hell out of there."
-Wayne Allyn Root

I hope he gets a chance to run as the Libertarian party president in the near future. In the meantime, Bob Barr is still growing on me.

There's No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

Eating at Togo's reminded me of Milton Friedman's famous quote that there's no such thing as as free lunch. I thought this was just a clever phrase he made, but George Stigler recounts how that line is actually based on a real restaurant near U Chicago.

There was a restaurant/bar nearby which gave free sandwiches every day at lunch time. The trick was that they made the sandwiches extremely salty, so that the customers would buy beers and other drinks as soon as they started eating. The restaurant then increased the price of the beers so that it covered the price of the sandwiches.

When Stigler, Friedman, and other faculty members were eating, one of them commented on how great it is that lunch is always free. To which Friedman responded, "There's no such thing as a free lunch."

Internet (Eminent) Domain Name?

I saw an ad for the U.S. Marines and noticed that their website is www.marines.com. I wonder if the government can extend its eminent domain power to websites as well as private property. Suppose that someone bought the domain www.marines.com before the U.S. government got to it, could it take that name if it paid just compensation?

Given the broad meaning of "public use" that was applied in Kelo v. New London, I wouldn't be surprised if it could be argued that a website can be taken for public use. Anyone know if eminent domain has expanded to include internet use as well?

Price Predation

I was having a conversation with someone earlier about monopolies, and everyone seems to believe that a big companies have the power to lower their prices until their competitors go out of business.
This rarely, if ever, happens, since it imposes massive costs on the company (which probably has a huge market share and is sustaining far more losses) and the promise of a monopoly price comes in the long term future. Furthermore, even if the large company succeeds, if another company rises up, the monopolist has to do the whole thing over again.

But Posner described with an interesting way some businessmen got around price predation. If a businessman is about to start a new company in a market he knows is run by a monopoly, and one he knows is going to try to use price predation, he should just short sell stock in the monopoly. That way, when he enters the market, the monopolist will start selling below cost and cause its own stock to fall. The new business will be hurt by the price predation, but the businessman makes a fortune from short selling. Once the new business fails, start another new business, short sell the monopolist, and repeat.

Bob Barr and the IRS

This one actually from Ricky on Bob Barr and excess government control.
I didn't get a chance to put of Christmas lights this year, so I haven't been able to check on the accuracy of his claim.

Conservatism and Pessimism

George Will explains why he became a conservative:

"Rooting for the Cubs of the late 1940s and early 1950s, I became gloomy, pessimistic, morose, dyspeptic-in a word, conservative."

I'd always thought that conservatives were supposed to be the optimistic ones. People on the Left are always complaining about how they're being oppressed by corporations, white people, and the bourgeois. I also find that white people on the Left are especially gloomy because they're always feeling guilty because they think they're the cause of the current condition of African Americans, the environment, and whatever else is a victim this season.

Conservatives on the other hand are generally people of faith who believe that hard work will pay off in a free market economy. Shouldn't they be the optimistic ones?

But maybe Will is referring to conservatives of the 1940's, who were understandably gloomy under FDR and Truman. In that case, we'd all be pessimistic.

American Dad

I used to think that shows like American Dad and the Colbert Report weren't very funny. Now I'm finding that as I became more conservative, they're hilarious. I'm not sure if this is a good sign since the main purpose is to exaggerate right wing tendencies. On the other hand, I also read an article that the most devout Christians are the ones who like Ned Flanders on the Simpsons.

Anyone else notice this phenomenon, that the people being made fun of like the characters that are designed to insult them?

John Lott the Debunker

I've heard a lot of people criticize Freakanomics and its claim that abortion reduces crime because the children who would have grown up to be criminals were aborted 18 years ago. Most of the criticisms I've heard center around attacking utilitarian logic and that we shouldn't kill one fetus to save several murder victims.

John Lott's Freedomnomics has the first criticism I've seen that focuses on real statistical data. He begins with an interesting finding:
Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973.
For children born between 1969 and 1973, by the time they reached the ages of 18-25, the rate of murder was normal.
For children born between 1974 and 1978, by the time those children reached 18-25, their rate of murder was dramatically higher.

Lott's explanation is that legalizing abortion has led to more children being born out of wedlock, since it caused increased promiscuity among young people. The number of children born into single parent homes increased, and those children started committing lots of crimes.

I'm not sure how convincing this long logical chain is, but that's mainly because I don't know if abortion actually caused lots of children to be born out of wedlock. This sounds correct, but he's the first person I've encountered to make this claim.

Anyone have thoughts on whether or not there is a causal connection between making abortions more accessible and having more single parent families? The economic explanation presented is that abortions reduce the "cost" of sex since both parties no longer have to worry about raising a child, and that this has therefore led to an explosion in irresponsible sex and actually more teen pregnancy.

How to stop a lien

I recommend Richard Epstein's Supreme Neglect for anyone interested in property rights and looking for fascinating examples of how far the government will go to avoid a takings claim.

My favorite case he describes is Armstrong v. United States. Essentially, the U.S. had purchased boats to use for the Navy. But there were actually still liens on the boats, the U.S. hadn't fully purchased them yet. So what does the U.S. do? Sails the boats out of the state, thereby ending the lien. Really, the government just set sail for international waters.

Most of the cases are the same as the one's we covered in Property, except Epstein explains the correct result the Court should have reached. I was most interested in the sections where he expands the application of takings to rent control, intellectual property, and of course, all taxes.

The Milton Friedman Institute

The University of Chicago announced plans to open the Milton Friedman Institute in honor of their most famous Nobel Prize winning faculty member. And then I read this in the Chicago Tribune
More than 100 professors signed a letter criticizing the naming of the institute after Milton Friedman.

And here I was, reflecting on Jonah Goldberg's book, wondering if liberals really were all that fascist. I apologize for doubting you Goldberg.


My favorite part of the faculty letter was that they claim Friedman's work and research has been to everyone's detriment...worldwide. Apparently Keynes is still believed to be a wonderful economist who helped people around the world. I'm sure he appreciates their thoughts while he's burning in hell.

Nice Fascism

I just finished Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, and it is fantastic. His main goal is to demonstrate how the left has more in common with fascist groups like the Nazis and Mussolini's black shirts. I'm glad someone is finally debunking the myth that the Nazis were part of the right when in fact Nazi stands for "National Socialist." I also learned quite a bit about progressive goals. According to Goldberg,

Margaret Sanger, one of the founders of Planned Parenthood, tried to distribute contraceptives to African Americans so that their population would fall and eventually die out.

Holmes decision in Buck v. Bell supporting eugenics was actually cheered by the left, it was Catholics on the right who were his biggest critics at the time.

Minimum wage was designed to keep good jobs for whites so immigrants and blacks would not "take away" those jobs by working for lower wages.

I've heard most of these arguments before, but usually they're only hinted at or implied. Goldberg is the first person I've read who comes out in the open to declare that the left is racist, fascist, and oppressive.

Open carry

The LA Times reports on a new trend among gun owners: not concealing their weapons but instead openly carrying them out in public.

We of course have the usual assortment of complaints:
1. It is harder for the police to tell who legitimately and who doesn't have a weapon.
2. The world has changed, it's not the Wild West.
3. "What are you, paranoid? There's no need for a gun at a retail store." (see the comments)

Anyone interested in the legality of opening carrying weapons in their state should check out OpenCarry.org (mentioned in the article). Seems like an interesting group.

We've got to do something

This music video from Forgetting Sarah Marshall really summarizes my feelings about U2, Green Day, and every other pretentious band that feels like lecturing me in their songs. Stick to writing songs instead of bitching about politics.

Scalia and Garner

I just finished Making Your Case by Scalia and Garner. There's nothing particularly new that wasn't taught in our legal writing classes, but it's the huge collection of anecdotes and examples that really make this book interesting.

For example, in explaining the importance of framing the issue. Scalia presents two ways of framing Eisenstadt v. Baird

1) It is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted government intrusion
2) We must decide whether the state is constitutionally obligated to allow the sale of goods that facilitate fornication and adultery by making those practices less costly.

Fantastic. I need to buy my own copy to use as a reference book.

Inefficient Breach

My view of Richard Posner has changed dramatically after reading his book, Not a Suicide Pact, which is about how we should interpret the Constitution to combat terrorism.
I'd never read anything by Posner about Constitutional law, and in the past I've generally agreed with his decisions that courts should try to achieve the most efficient outcome.

I don't think achieving the most efficient outcome is the proper goal of interpreting the Constitution though. It's a text designed to protect people, even if the outcome turns out to be the more efficient one. Yet Posner's argument centers on balancing liberty and security from terrorists. His goal is to find the margin at which a small sacrifice in liberty will create an equal increase in security. After addressing the ability of each branch to calculate the costs and benefits, he ends up deciding that judges are best able to make such calculations.

Some particularly disturbing lines:
"So much of the constitutional text is vague or obsolete that a great deal of judicial patchwork is required for the Constitution to remain serviceable more than tw centuries after it was written."

"Ex Parte Milligan was decided in 1866. The idea that a case almost a century and half old should guide us in dealing with al-Qaeda is ridiculous."

"Far more dangerous is the resistance of business, in the name of property rights and free markets...Property rights can block national security measures as mischievously as rights of liberty and privacy can."


But even assuming that an efficient outcome of security and liberty is a proper goal, the Constitution intentionally makes sure that it's not political actors who are doing these calculations. Politicians tend to gain more power and can justify more taxes the greater the perceived national security. Hence, the Constitution makes sure liberties are taken out of the political process because we shouldn't trust elected officials to strike the right balance.

I've now realized that Posner is no originalist, and that even though he may often come to the same conclusions as actual originalists, it's not because he feels bound by the text in any meaningful sense. Long live formalism.

But can you legislate from the bench?

Wired has an article on Sandra Day O'Connor's work on a new online, interactive civic education game called Our Courts. The article notes an early exercise on students' First Amendment rights, including Tinker v. Des Moines and the "BONG HiTS 4 JESUS" case.

George Will on Colbert

A sad but true line from Colbert:
"My guest tonight is one of the intellectual giants of conservatism. He doesn't have as much competition as he used to."

I've never seen Will speak before, but I was very impressed. He's probably the closest I've seen to Buckley both in his persona and his old school conservative views.

"The government's job is to deliver the mail, defend the shores, and get out of the way."

I think he's mostly right, but where did he get the idea that the government should be delivering the mail? Thankfully it's only a small tinge of statism.

Too bad Lexis stopped giving points away, otherwise I'd get his book for free. But I think I'll still buy it.

Barry Goldwater

"A government that has the power to give you everything you want also has the power to take away everything you have."
-Barry Goldwater

I used to think that Ron Paul was the only politician who invoked Barry Goldwater these days, but I recently finished Reclaiming Conservatism by Mickey Edwards. Edwards is a former Congressman who served for 16 years and was one of the founders of the Heritage Foundation. I was very surprised to hear a Heritage Foundation leader viciously criticize neo-cons for supporting bigger government and an aggressive foreign policy.

It's also a fantastic read for anyone interested in the recent history of the conservative movement. I'm also becoming more sympathetic to the term "paleocon" even though it makes me think of small government dinosaur fossils.

Possible Speaker?

A recent post from Eugene Volokh's blog:

[Eugene Volokh, June 3, 2008 at 5:12pm]

Talks to a Few Federalist Society Student Chapters Next Spring:

I won't be teaching most of next Spring, and my boys will be a little older and (I hope) less of a handful for my wife to mind; so I'm hoping that I could do a bit more talking to Federalist Society student groups, something that I enjoy but that I have unfortunately not been able to do for the last few years.

My hope, though, is that I could avoid taking two-day-long trips across country just to give one talk. So if you are in a city with several law schools, would like to invite me to talk to your Federalist Society, and can coordinate things with a few other chapters so that I can do three or four talks in two or three days, please e-mail me at volokh at law dot ucla dot edu.

What we waste time on in education

More grade inflation. A number of schools have decided to change grade Fs from zero to 50. As a math major in college, this comment did it for me:

"It's a classic mathematical dilemma: that the students have a six times greater chance of getting an F," says Douglas Reeves, founder of The Leadership and Learning Center.

I don't want to explain what's wrong with that.

One consequence is because 60% is all that's needed to be considered proficient, students can now do absolutely nothing but squeak by on a single exam and pass.

Government math

The New York Times reports on the number of state and local governments promising benefits to public workers based on nonsense for the most part.

Things like having consultants hired by the workers themselves to do the analysis.

One great example: when Fort Worth's pension fund ended up with a $410 million deficit, they found that an actuary had calculated that the city could put less money into and give more away. All they needed was a 10.23% annual growth rate!

There is one possible solution: getting the regulator, the Internal Revenue Service, to stop the fox from guarding the henhouses.

Update on knife control in England

The Sun reports on the new shock advertising campaign featuring bloody images of real-knife wounds. More than 400 search-and-stop operations during a two-week blitz. The images, clips and radio advertisements feel strangely familiar.

Environmentalists decide to scare the children

The state-sponsored Australian Broadcasting Corporation's "Planet Slayer" site has an interesting way to inform children about their environmental impact. Children are invited to take a quiz and informs them "what age you should die at so you don’t use more than your fair share of Earth’s resources!"

Australian Senator Mitch Fifield asked the Herald-Sun, "Do you think it's appropriate that the ABC ... depict people who are average Australians as massive overweight ugly pigs, oozing slime from their mouths, and then to have these pigs blow up in a mass of blood and guts?"

Of course, as PlanetSlayer's "creative director" tells the New York Post, "you can't buy publicity like that."

Luckily for me, I only should have died at age 9.6, so I'm doing better than most. Take the quiz yourself.

Originalism and the Draft

I recently bought Ron Paul's "Revolution: A Manifesto" and he made an interesting originalist argument against the draft that I had never heard before.

Article I Section 8 Clause 12 states:
"To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;"

Ron Paul claims that the power to "raise" armies never meant the power to do so forcefully, but only meant the power to pay people to volunteer to be soldiers. I wish I had a 1780's dictionary I could consult, and none of the certified originalists on the Court have addressed this question.

Can anyone verify that raising armies meant only paying people, or that English practice has historically not had a draft?

Destroying the 1st to keep the 2nd down

Mike Bloomberg has an interesting approaching to stopping 2nd Amendment arguments: gag orders not allowing its use as a defense. The case involves a Georgia gun shop being sued by New York City for its gun violence. The owner says his store follows Georgia and federal regulations and takes steps to avoid selling firearms to gun traffickers, but the city has filed a motion disallowing any mention of the 2nd Amendment at all.

However, it looks like the lawyer, following an earlier case. No mention of the Bill of Rights in exchange for no mention of the National Rifle Association. So it looks like freedom of association is being banned as well.

Why you can't soak the rich

The WSJ has a editorial about an interesting calculation from San Francisco investment economist Kurt Hauser (which they suggest calling Hauser's law):

No matter what the tax rates have been, in postwar America tax revenues have remained at about 19.5% of GDP.

The point being that a tax rate hike reduces GDP (which is agreed up by everyone) but it will lower tax revenues. The Journal notes the similarity to the Laffer curve but this seems wholly independent.

Farm bill update

In a sign of how insanely complicated our bills are nowadays, Congress discovered it had forgotten about 34 pages of it when it sent it to the White House. I know it's too hard to expect our politicians to actually read the damn things they are passing but it's seriously pathetic.

Of course, the best line was:

"We will have to repass the whole thing, as will the Senate," said Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y. "We can't let the farm bill just die."

Oh, how I disagree with that.

Politician forgets to make himself an out for his new law

It seems that when Richard Mell of Chicago pushed a bill through requiring annual re-registration of all guns, he forgot a little something. So he does the obvious politician thing and proposes a one-month amnesty to get himself compliant. Typical.

"They're not going to miss it"

To fund veterans' benefits, Democrats are proposing a 1/2% income tax increase for incomes above $1 million, but it's ok because "They are not going to miss it."

This reminds me of a poem, but I'll leave the comments for someone else to come up with the exact words if they can.

"For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!"

There's an interesting interview in German magazine Spiegel with Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati who says to stop the aid. A couple of reasons:

1. Huge corrupt, complacent bureaucracies form around this aid. (both in Africa and among the organizations built to "help" but who ultimately would have to close down if their help were no longer needed).
   
2. Africans are taught to become beggars and not to be independent. African nations should be trading within themselves (which would also be a huge environmental gain as we reduce the impact of huge worldwide shipments).
   
3. Weakening of the local market and reduction in the incentives for entrepreneurship.

One of the biggest problem, as pointed out, is that the item most shipped over is the one thing all Western nations heavily subsidize (and what all Africa actually has a competitive advantage in): food. The other "problem" is AIDS, both the realistic problem and the perverse incentive for those countries to exaggerate the problem so as to keep their biggest "business" working.

Infringe, Infringe, Infringe

Paul Helmke, an anti-gun lobbyist, on the Colbert Report:
"[The 2nd Amendment] is the only amendment that's got the word 'regulate' in it, they must have meant some sort of regulation."

Just for reference, here's the text of the 2nd: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

He's right that the word "regulate" does appear in the amendment, but in context it refers to the people's regulation of a militia, not state regulation of guns. I find it very alarming that he interprets the Constitution one word at a time instead of one sentence at a time.

Some other statements I expect from Hemke in the future:

The 4th Amendment is the only amendment that's got the word "seizure" in it, so they must have supported some people having seizures.

The 1st Amendment is the only amendment that's got the word "grievances" in it, so they must have meant the government should cause grievances.

The 3rd Amendment is the only amendment that's got the word "quartered" in it, so they must have meant some people will be drawn and quartered.

Great Book Titles

I've been thinking that I should start judging books entirely on their covers and their titles. If I do, here are ones at the top of my list:

"Leave Us Alone" by Grover Norquist
"Why Government Doesn't Work" by Harry Browne

Straight to the point, that's how book titles should be.

Buy sugar at 23 cents a pound, Sell it at 2 cents a pound

Where else but the government waste known as the Farm Bill?

[Note: this cartoon is from 2002 when it was only $180 billion. This bill is about $300 billion]

Junk Mail

A recent flyer I got in my mailbox:
"Prop 98 is a landlord scheme to eliminate rent control and unfairly evict you"

They're trying to get rid of rent control? At long last, Milton Friedman lives on.
It gets better, because Prop 98 is also trying to eliminate the use of eminent domain to give land to private parties.

I can't wait to vote for this, it's attacking both rent control and Kelo v. New London.
A tip of the hat to the sponsors of this proposal: Doug Mosebar, Jon Coupal, and Jim Nielsen.

Oh, and a wag of the finger to the following groups who sent that flyer to me:
The AARP, Natural Resources Defense Council, Consumer Federation of California, California Teachers Association, Housing California, and the California League of Conservation Voters.

Global warming is decimating the polar bear population.

Well, you might want to ask the bears about that one, because the bear population now numbers about 24,000 - up about 40 percent from 1974. Still the US Interior Department will decide on Friday whether to list polar bears as a threatened species. And if anyone has seen Penn and Teller's take on the Endangered Species Act, it'll make the list.

Update: made the list. But the Interior department added stipulations mainly so that environmentalist groups cannot use its placement as a way to all-out stop everything under global warming and its effects on the bears.

Also, props to Pacific Legal Foundation who are now suing this additional of a thriving species to the endangered species act.

This image gets funnier every time I see it

Ron Paul Town

A project to create gated communities made up entirely of Ron Paul supporters.
I'm still concerned that it allows for voting on community efforts. Then again, I suppose Ron Paul is a minimalist, not an anarcho-capitalist.
Thanks to volokh.com.

Further gas tax holiday fun

Along with all the economists saying that a decrease in the federal tax is just going to go into the oil companies' pockets, I see that states like Nevada have genius regulations that simply will raise their state gas taxes to offset any reduction in the federal tax. Either by the left hand or the right hand, the government's getting its money.

Knife control

Well, for Scotland, really it's sword control.

Best part is the line from Cathy Jamieson, Justice Minister:

Nobody living in a normal house or flat in an ordinary community needs a sword as part of day-to-day life.

Why does sound familiar?

Note: Coventry's knife possession law, while the Chinese are busy with their "controlled knives."

Hillary Clinton: I'm not listening to economists

A Democrat not listening to economists? What a shock. Of course, Hillary's plan (holiday for the gas tax over the summer) is the same as McCain's.

On the other hand, Obama's windfall profits tax is the same as well. Of course, when the price increase is passed down, the strategy is the same: rebates back. Whenever politicians suggest taxing one group and subsidizing another, we end up hoping to equalize the effect but they get the added votes and bribe money, er, campaign contributions from the other group.

Further note: I couldn't make this up if I tried but now we've got more than two-hundred and thirty economists all saying how stupid the gas tax holiday plan is. I swear, I couldn't get five economists in my class to agree on anything but knowing politics, we'll have a holiday for the summer.

Finals Grammar

I've been repeatedly told that I shouldn't worry about grammar and spelling while writing a final, but a sample answer from a previous year surprised me,

"First, we should still want to strike down stupid laws. The function of takings doctrine is to strike down stupid laws,"

While I fully agree with this statement, I didn't know I could resort to name calling in a final. Had I known this, I would have had a lot more fun in torts.

Why a command economy never works

And just because I love his cartoons, Michael Ramirez has his pulse on the situation:

Well, it seems like the craze over biofuels is finally ending. Hailed as a great idea and with tons of government pushing for more investment, we see insane worldwide inflation, especially for foodstuffs. President Bush asks for $770 million more in world food aid. The new United Nation top adviser on food, Olivier de Schutter, quite simply calls any further investment in biofuels "irresponsible." However, he's much more calmer that the prior guy, Jean Ziegler, who called biofuels "a crime against humanity." Of course, once they killed all investments, we're back to our next problem: there will be a glut in global food prices everywhere and we'll see farmers everywhere starving yet again.

How many times do we need to see that once the government decides that it is going to "help", there is a huge bubble and then a massive self-correcting shock before we stop playing this game? Now it is biofuels, it was housing a decade ago, telecommunications before that (AT&T as a monopoly), the airline industry (just let something die!) and going back in American history, the railroads (leading to the "robber barons" and the need for antitrust regulation).

[Note: to top it off, Nobel Prize winner Norman Borlaug (leader of the Green Revolution) has a Wall Street Journal OpEd telling the Bush Administration to use actual foreign aid, buying food in Africa for Africans, rather that this disguised domestic aid nonsense the US does]

Divided We Fail

This website has a bunch of ads that keep interrupting me when I'm watching the Colbert Report. For those who haven't seen it, their logo is half elephant and half donkey. I finally decided to visit it, expecting to see compromise solutions to government financing and health care. Instead I saw this. Some of the highlights:

We believe...

Our children and grandchildren should have an adequate quality of life when they retire. Social Security must be strengthened without burdening future generations.

We believe...

Wellness and prevention efforts, including changes in personal behavior such as diet and exercise, should be top national priorities.

So rather than offer some middle solution, such as privatizing parts of social security, or reducing government involvement in health care, their solution is to strengthen social security and then make people diet and exercise?

This probably wouldn't bother me, except that this is a prime example of why I don't like Obama's campaign. Lots of Obama maniac classmates keep telling me about the importance of unity and bipartisan solutions, then they explain proposals that have been around since the Johnson administration.

I don't mind if people come to me and argue for pro-government solutions, but it is annoying when they try to disguise it as a wonderful cooperative solution that both parties should endorse.
I think the same classmates would be equally annoyed if I advertised my plan for the elimination of the FDA as an attempt to "reach across the aisle."

But just in case, I think I'm going to try it. After all, shouldn't Democrats and Republicans believe in eliminating minimum wage? Divided we fail, but together we can do anything.

Torture is Punishment?

I was watching the Daily Show, and they had several segments about Scalia's view of the 8th Amendment and whether it covers torture. For some reason Jon Stewart was shocked to hear this interpretation.
Scalia's position is that the 8th does not cover torture because the goal of torture is not to punish a person. This made a lot of sense to me when I heard him say it, I looked it up in the dictionary and found,
punishment:A penalty imposed for wrongdoing
Torture then does not make much sense as a punishment, since it's not imposed because of any wrongdoing.
I found this to be a particularly compelling explanation because torture for interrogation purposes is already prohibited by the 5th due process clause. Numerous cases have held that police interrogation of suspects is unconstitutional because of that clause. For those who are opposed to torturing suspected terrorists, I believe their best argument lies in the 5th instead of the 8th.

ABA Affirmative Action

A Wall Street Journal Article on the ABA requiring what looks like a quota if minorities. I was reminded of Thomas Sowell's latest book, Economic Facts and Fallacies, in which he has a section dedicated to the ABA's means-oriented approach to accreditation.
Rather than require a certain number of courses in specific topics or require that each class have a certain number of minorities, the ABA should just look at the ends. Let each law school design its program as it sees fit, and the ABA can just look at the overall bar passage rates and the bar passage rates of its minorities. If both rates are high, who cares if the law schools is accomplishing this by having less than a fixed number of credits in writing or ethics.
I think his most important point is that affirmative action does not do minorities any favors. Affirmative action has encouraged minorities to enroll in higher ranked law schools with low minority bar passage rates instead of staying at lower ranked law schools with dramatically higher minority bar passage rates.

Scalia on 60 Minutes

My favorite line from his interview:
"Some people come and inquire, 'Justice Scalia, when did you first become an originalist?' as if it was some weird affliction, like 'when did you start eating human flesh?'"

Doomed to repeat history

Don't usually like to go into specific political notes, but to be this ignorant of history is just sad. Just ironic to protest the running of the Olympic torch ceremony given its historical background.

Waiting for Antonin

I realized that I've posted half a dozen times, and not one has mentioned Antonin Scalia. Which is why I wanted to share my favorite line of the week, which comes from Scalia's dissent in Tennessee v. Lane.
Fed up with standards like "strict scrutiny" "intermediate scrutiny" and "congruence and proportionality" Scalia decided to apply a much older standard to determine Congress' power under the 14th Amendment: "I shall leave it to Congress, under constraints no tighter than those of the Necessary and Proper Clause."
That is fantastic. In the face of 50 years of case precedent, Scalia casts aside "flabby tests" and goes back to the actual text of the Constitution. I maintain that if Chuck Norris ever gets nominated to the Supreme Court, he will change his name to Antonin Scalia Jr.

Mad TV Ad on McCain

Can't wait for more attack ads like these.

The Efficiency of Gifts

I recently received a copy of Richard Posner's Economic Analysis of Law for my birthday. "Gifts" are actually in the index, (pg. 523) although it deals with whether or not gifts should be considered income for tax purposes. Posner comes to the conclusion that if gifts are truly altruistic, they will not substitute away from market employment, and therefore should not count as taxable income.
Thanks to Rob for getting me the most efficient present I've ever received.

The Enumerated Powers Act

Quite simple really. Bill HR1359 (thanks to Downsize DC) would "require Congress to reference the specific clause(s) of the U.S. Constitution that grant them the power to enact laws and take other congressional actions." Introduced by Representative John Shadegg (R-AZ) in 2007, the bill already has 47 cosponsors but has been thoroughly buried in the House Judiciary and House Rules committees since March 2007. It's time to push our representatives to tell us what enumerated powers they are abusing before they pass another law.

A different strategy for zoning issues

An oldie but here is another way for dealing with a zoning dispute.

Three generations of welfare recipients are enough

In Buck v. Bell, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously commented "Three generations of imbeciles are enough." The Daily Mail reports on a similar problem with "Three generation of welfare recipients" in the UK. Just a simple set of economic incentives at work here, well, maybe not at work for them. Having read the Mail for years, they may be some dramatic license but if there is even a remote chance of 6 million Britons living in households where nobody works and instead lives off government benefits, that should be enough to fear.

Another article points out another problem:
...inequalities in the tax system mean that those receiving welfare who find work face punitive rates of taxation as for every extra pound earned they lose up to 90 per cent of their benefit.

Given that "social mobility has not improved since the 1970s, despite substantial increases in benefits" in the UK, is it really a surprise that LBJ's "Great Society" has yet to take hold? There are now massive perverse social, political, and economic incentives against people working. Perhaps, instead of looking for that next great program to solve the problem, it is time to consider whether giving people money for not being able to work incentivizes them to want to work at all.

More on our Constitutional Law Book

A look into the index of our Constitutional Law textbook. Here are how many pages there are for each of the following topics:

Race discrimination: over 100 pages
The social and legal construction of race: 13 pages
Gender classification: 30 pages
Pornography and public libraries: 6 pages
New Deal: 11

Contrast these entries to number of mentions of:
2nd amendment: 1 page, 1 footnote
Individual rights: 1 page
Enumerated powers: 0

Constitutional Law Alternatives

I was discussing with a classmate about how neither of us finds the second half of our Constitutional Law class very interesting. The first half moves chronologically through Supreme Court decisions, and then it switches to thematic elements like gender, race, and the right to privacy.
Of course, one cannot simply criticize without offering a valid alternative. So I've been thinking about sending a copy of this book by Randy Barnett to all the Constitutional Law professors in the hopes that they may change their courses.
The main difference is that instead of focusing on gender and race issues, Barnett dedicates several chapters to freedom of religion, gun rights, and private property. I'm positive that if we were using that book in class, I would be reading my homework instead of blogging right now.

Property Rights in Sim City

We're discussing takings and zoning in Property and a classmate made a comparison between Hadacheck and the game of Sim City. It struck me that property rights are not at all respected in the land of Sim City. Consider the following:

• The game allows for demolition of homes and businesses with no compensation, the only cost the player has to pay is to the demolition company.
  
• Placing industrial zones next to residential zones has no effect on the value of both properties.
  
• There are never any covenants that the city has to deal with, rezoning is done freely at will.
  

I realize this is just a game, but it concerns me because it teaches kids bad lessons about property rights. People seem to get very excited about violence in video games, I propose we also get excited about excessive government in video games.
In contrast, consider the respect for property rights in Monopoly (in spite of the anti-market goal of the game)

• There's no such thing as a free lunch, if you land on someone's property, you have to pay for it.
  
• Players need to coordinate among three different property owners before they can start building homes or hotels
• It teaches kids to hate landing on the income tax and luxury tax spaces
• The city never takes your property. The only way you lose it is if you sell it.

Despite the fact that people can still buy their way out of jail, I would still choose to live in Monopoly land over Sim City.

Spontaneous Law

I can't find a link to it, but I recommend everyone use Lexis and find Bruce L. Benson, "The Spontaneous Evolution of Commercial Law."
This is one of my favorite law review articles of all time. It traces the development of the Lex Mercatoria, a system of law that grew out of customs among merchants in Medieval Europe. Over centuries, these merchant customs solidified into a sophisticated set of commercial laws that is still used today in international trade. What's particularly interesting is that private companies regularly obey it, and yet there is no international organization to enforce it.
I found this interesting for a few reasons,
1) Coercive force is not necessary to have a well functioning system of law
2) Often the most effective laws are not ones drafted by Congressional committees or a group of law professors, but customary practices developed by parties involved in day to day activities
3) Tradition is a powerful source of legitimacy. The Lex Mercatoria relies upon no sovereign authority and was never voted upon. People obey it because it's effective, and because it's traditional.

Welcome to the USC Federalist Society

Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.

First post

Today was Preview Day at the University of Southern California and I thought this would be a good time for the first post. The USC Federalist Society is obviously a part of the larger Federalist Society at the University of Southern California.