Monday, December 29, 2003
Walter E. Williams: Parting company is an option
Williams followed up the last piece I blogged with this essay on what amounts to secession from the US to achieve what the Constitution actually states.
"Free State Project (www.freestateproject.org) intends to get 20,000 or so Americans to move to New Hampshire and, through a peaceful political process, reduce burdensome taxation and regulation, reform state and local law, end federal mandates, and attempt to restore constitutional federalism as envisioned by the nation's founders.
Since there was only a remote possibility that we could successfully negotiate with Congress, the Courts and White House to obey the U.S. Constitution, I speculated that liberty could only be realized by a unilateral declaration of independence -- namely, part company. Quite a few readers criticized the idea, calling secession unconstitutional. Let's look at it.
Williams then goes on to site numerous reasons why secession from the US is not unconstitutional. Of course he ends with a sobering tale of troops and military might if once would try to seceded. Props to Walter Williams for once again providing some sound logic.
Williams followed up the last piece I blogged with this essay on what amounts to secession from the US to achieve what the Constitution actually states.
"Free State Project (www.freestateproject.org) intends to get 20,000 or so Americans to move to New Hampshire and, through a peaceful political process, reduce burdensome taxation and regulation, reform state and local law, end federal mandates, and attempt to restore constitutional federalism as envisioned by the nation's founders.
Since there was only a remote possibility that we could successfully negotiate with Congress, the Courts and White House to obey the U.S. Constitution, I speculated that liberty could only be realized by a unilateral declaration of independence -- namely, part company. Quite a few readers criticized the idea, calling secession unconstitutional. Let's look at it.
Williams then goes on to site numerous reasons why secession from the US is not unconstitutional. Of course he ends with a sobering tale of troops and military might if once would try to seceded. Props to Walter Williams for once again providing some sound logic.
Walter E. Williams: Let's do some detective work
"My detective work concludes with several competing explanations. The first is that the great men who laid the framework for our nation were not only constitutionally ignorant but callous and uncaring, as well. The second is it's today's politicians who are constitutionally ignorant. Lastly, it's today's Americans who have contempt for the Constitution, and any congressman or president upholding the Constitution's letter and spirit would be tarred and feathered. "
That sums up the points that Walter Williams was trying to make in one of his latest essays.
He further states:
"In one of those papers, Federalist Paper 45, James Madison wrote: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will for the most part be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people; and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the States."
Unfortunately individuals like Madison, Grover Cleveland, and Franklin Pierce no longer serve in our government (save Ron Paul), so Williams is just beating a drum that no one in governement listens to in 2003.
"My detective work concludes with several competing explanations. The first is that the great men who laid the framework for our nation were not only constitutionally ignorant but callous and uncaring, as well. The second is it's today's politicians who are constitutionally ignorant. Lastly, it's today's Americans who have contempt for the Constitution, and any congressman or president upholding the Constitution's letter and spirit would be tarred and feathered. "
That sums up the points that Walter Williams was trying to make in one of his latest essays.
He further states:
"In one of those papers, Federalist Paper 45, James Madison wrote: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will for the most part be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people; and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the States."
Unfortunately individuals like Madison, Grover Cleveland, and Franklin Pierce no longer serve in our government (save Ron Paul), so Williams is just beating a drum that no one in governement listens to in 2003.
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
Cartoons in 2003
Jesse Walker, of Reason, pens a good article on how cartoons such as Southpark and King of the Hill have a libertarian/conservative bend to them. He also touches on the Simpsons and its all over the map politics. Cartoons have definitely growns up and growns up.
Not conservative. But not liberal, either. An intensely political show - really - South Park almost always comes down on the libertarian side of an argument. Its targets range from environmental crusaders to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to government-run sex education. And no, it doesn't preach a libertine sort of libertarianism. In addition to the sex-ed episode, it's satirized the extreme wing of the pro-choice movement and once devoted a half-hour to arguing that there's a good reason why TV should refrain from airing cuss words.
If South Park is libertarian, then King of the Hill might best be described as populist. It makes no bones about its heroes' failings: Hank Hill is naive and repressed, his family is eccentric and his best friends are a loser, a womanizer and a raving paranoid. But their world exists in a kind of balance, where everyone's good qualities make up for everyone else's flaws; you get the impression that their Texas suburb can take care of itself. Real trouble comes when outsiders try to interfere: regulators, managers with MBAs, Ritalin-dispensing doctors, left-wing or right-wing ideologues.
(via Ulmann)
Jesse Walker, of Reason, pens a good article on how cartoons such as Southpark and King of the Hill have a libertarian/conservative bend to them. He also touches on the Simpsons and its all over the map politics. Cartoons have definitely growns up and growns up.
Not conservative. But not liberal, either. An intensely political show - really - South Park almost always comes down on the libertarian side of an argument. Its targets range from environmental crusaders to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to government-run sex education. And no, it doesn't preach a libertine sort of libertarianism. In addition to the sex-ed episode, it's satirized the extreme wing of the pro-choice movement and once devoted a half-hour to arguing that there's a good reason why TV should refrain from airing cuss words.
If South Park is libertarian, then King of the Hill might best be described as populist. It makes no bones about its heroes' failings: Hank Hill is naive and repressed, his family is eccentric and his best friends are a loser, a womanizer and a raving paranoid. But their world exists in a kind of balance, where everyone's good qualities make up for everyone else's flaws; you get the impression that their Texas suburb can take care of itself. Real trouble comes when outsiders try to interfere: regulators, managers with MBAs, Ritalin-dispensing doctors, left-wing or right-wing ideologues.
(via Ulmann)
