Richard Rahn is rightly appalled by civil asset forfeiture.
George Will righty applauds the truth that Tim Sandefur emphasizes about the U.S. Constitution and America’s founders. Here’s Will’s conclusion:
Sandefur says progressivism “inverts America’s constitutional foundations” by holding that the Constitution is “about” democracy, which rejects the framers’ premise that majority rule is legitimate “only within the boundaries” of the individual’s natural rights. These include — indeed, are mostly — unenumerated rights whose existence and importance are affirmed by the Ninth Amendment.
Many conservatives should be discomfited by Sandefur’s analysis, which entails this conclusion: Their indiscriminate denunciations of “judicial activism” inadvertently serve progressivism. The protection of rights, those constitutionally enumerated and others, requires a judiciary actively engaged in enforcing what the Constitution is “basically about,” which is making majority power respect individuals’ rights.
Duke University economist and political scientist Mike Munger explains that we do not need nations, flags, or armies to make us prosperous. Here’s Mike’s conclusion:
That “feeling of solidarity” is society—voluntary, uncoerced, natural human society. We don’t need nations, and we don’t need flags and armies to make us prosperous. All we need is voluntary private cooperation, and the feeling of solidarity and prosperous interdependence that comes from human creativity unleashed.
Richard Epstein brilliantly reflects on “Progressives'” hysteria for so-called “equal pay” legislation. (HT Steve Pejovich) A slice:
Our false preoccupation with pay equity is not costless, for it leads to bad labor market regulations that hurt all workers. Employment relationships will only form and endure when the gains from the deal exceed the costs of putting it together. Every time a government regulation imposes some new restriction on the contracting parties, it increases the costs of the deal and reduces the benefits it generates, thereby killing jobs for men and women alike.
Marty Mazorra is unimpressed with Paul Krugman’s discussion of privately financed and built fiber-optic lines. (Who says, by the way, that infrastructure must be built by government?!)
Megan McArdle discusses the continuing calamity that is Obamacare.
