South Puget Sound Libertarian

 
From Jacob Hornberger:

Consider Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and military spending — the programs that everyone agrees are the root causes of out-of-control federal spending and soaring debt.

The statists always call for reform, reform, reform. The latest brilliant proposal, which the NYT [New York Times -- ed.] endorses, is a commission to study the problem, one that will inevitably conclude, “The system needs reform.”

Hope springs eternal for the statists. All that’s needed is more spending, higher taxes, and “reform,” and socialist-imperialist paradise will finally have arrived.

That’s just siren-song nonsense. What’s actually needed is a repeal of all socialist programs, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and all the rest, along with all the taxes that fund them.

Yes, you read that right — repeal, not reform — and immediate.

No, there will not be people dying in the streets. Instead there will be the greatest outburst of economic prosperity and vitality that people have ever witnessed, along with the greatest outpouring of voluntary charity. It just requires self-esteem, self-confidence, self-reliance, and an unswerving belief in one’s self, others, freedom, and God.

Moreover, it entails an immediate withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, where U.S. troops continue to kill, maim, torture, incarcerate, kidnap, and destroy every day. Yes, you read that right — withdraw immediately. And not only from there, but also from Korea, Europe, Japan (where the Japanese people are demanding an end to the U.S. occupation of their country), Africa, Latin America, and everywhere else. Why, it’s even time to start closing military bases here in the United States. The Cold War ended long ago, and all the U.S. Empire has done since then is stir up trouble to keep the warfare largess flowing to the military-industrial complex.

Oh, and while we’re at it, let’s end the drug war too, immediately. What possible justification for spending money on this 35-year old failed, immoral, and destructive program could there be, except that it provides revenue (including bribes and asset forfeiture) for public officials and drug lords?

Only by restoring a genuinely free-market, limited-government republic to our land can we hope to restore morality, freedom, harmony, and prosperity to our land.

This is a recipe for a real revolution, one based on freedom. Neither the Democrats, the Republicans, the Tea Partiers or any other political group believes in freedom. I’m against all political parties including the Libertarian Party. I want to see the country de-politicized. That would require an end to the gigantic national state we now have and an end to the gigantic individual states, too. If we’re going to keep having governments, they need to be accessible and controllable locally. Therefore, they need to be small, like counties, and they need to be independent of control from above. The best case would be no government at all.

I know; dream on, Mark, you loon.

 
As most of you know, cats are totally nuts. They’re very much alike, but each has its own unique, um, qualities. Here’s one dramatic case of cat screwballity:

But husbands or wives or friends or whatevers can also be "unique". Sometimes, for example, I come home to this:

Just kidding. Really. But, uh . . . hmm.

 
Interesting that it’s a Brit, someone from a highly socialist country. Loverly. Rock on, Mr. Bloom!

 
Got it? Here’s an entry on Google’s News page:

I particularly enjoy the use of the word, "unexpectedly". We’re seeing it all over the web as economists predict one thing and the prediction fails. They don’t agree on anything, but economics is a "science".

You simply cannot put any credence into government statistics. They will bend the numbers to make themselves look good. The media put the gov’s numbers on page 1. When the revision comes, it’s on page 10, if it’s anywhere.

What we really know is that unemployment is high and the number of unemployed, underemployed or those who have stopped looking for jobs is high. The situation is bad and now the stock market is finally seeing it.

 
According to Bloomberg:

The U.S. may lose 824,000 jobs when the government releases its annual revision to employment data on Feb. 5, showing the labor market was in worse shape during the recession than known at the time.

They (Bloomberg) have some interesting graphs. Here’s one:

Yep. The giant bailouts and the government handouts have certainly worked to create millions of jobs. It all depends on who creates the data and/or who interprets it. 824,000 jobs. Wow! Follow Rockwell’s Law and, as a default position, never believe anything the government says.

 
The US government’s policy (if that’s the correct word) towards China is a multi-headed set of contradictions.

On the one head, we want China to continue to finance our spending by lending us money to fight our imperial wars including money to finance our weapons program directed towards China itself.

On another head, we want China to provide explanations and assurances that their moves are purely defensive. Now that’s a total contradiction when the US has created hundreds of foreign military bases near China, and has aircraft carrier task forces in the Pacific. Both the foreign bases and the naval forces are there with the specific intention to threaten China. If China is surrounded by our military bases, how can we expect China to believe that our intentions are purely defensive. Suppose China had bases in Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. Would we accept assurances that such bases were purely defensive? I think not.

On another head of the US hydra, the US expects China to accept our arming of Taiwan. How would we feel if China sent weapons to, say, Puerto Rico, if Puerto Rico wanted to be even partially free from the US. China is certainly justified in seeing this as a direct military threat, something that the US government cannot understand (sure).

Another head of the US hydra is the Pentagon’s near total takeover of the foreign policy and justice system in the US. If you look at the Pentagons’ Quadrennial Defense Review Report, you can see this:

The role of the Department of Defense is to field, sustain, and employ the military capabilities needed to protect the United States and its allies and to advance our interests.

As a global power, the United States has a broad range of tools for advancing its national interests described above. Whenever possible, we seek to pursue those interests through cooperation, diplomacy, economic development and engagement, and the power of America’s ideas and values. When absolutely necessary, the United States and its allies have shown the willingness and ability to resort to force in defense of our interests and the common good.

Despite those who disregard the rules of the international system, the United States must remain a standard-bearer in the conduct of war. The United States will maintain and support international norms by upholding the Geneva Conventions and by providing detainees and prisoners of war the rights and protections afforded to them under international law.

This is astounding. The role of the DoD is to "advance our interests"? It is to defend our interests and the "common good"? And it is a standard-bearer (i.e., a moral  standard-bearer) in the conduct of war?

The military is supposed to protect us when someone attacks us. It is not supposed to be an agency that advances our national interests. The reason for that is that there are no such things as "our national interests". You may tell me that X is a national interest and I may disagree or say that, no, Y is a national interest. The point is that no person or group of persons can define what a national interest is. Yet we are forced to spend money on invasive actions around the world because some people in government think that such actions are in the national interest. At bottom, the notion of national interest is totalitarian.

Then to claim that the military is a moral standard-bearer in war, is simply a blatant joke. Just as an example, take the Guantánamo prison and its military tribunals. Torture, denial of rights, denial of due process, admission of hearsay evidence and evidence obtained through torture. How’s that for a moral standard-bearer?

China is faced with a multi-headed monster. It is supposed to bow to the dictates of the US imperial government. Even though it is a huge trading partner and a huge financial lender, the US blithely thinks China will go along with US threats because the US has a stronger military and has military bases around and near China, while China has no such bases around or near the US. What would you do in such a situation, if you were the Chinese government? You would arm yourself.

The US ultimately wants a war with China to settle the question of who is going to dominate the world. The US deliberately interprets Chinese actions as threatening and propagandizes us so that we will see China as an enemy. We do not need to do this. We can stop being an imperial power and enjoy peaceful trade with China and everyone else. We should close down our foreign military bases and turn towards peace, that word that everyone has forgotten.

 
According to Sullivan, the pseudo-libertarian statist, if Hayek says something, then libertarians must believe it. The quote from Hayek:

Nor is there any reason why the state should not assist the individuals in providing for those common hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate provision.

Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance – where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks – the case for the state’s helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong… Wherever communal action can mitigate disasters against which the individual can neither attempt to guard himself nor make the provision for the consequences, such communal action should undoubtedly be taken,” – The Road To Serfdom (Chapter 9).

We’re supposed to believe that statement because Hayek made it. Sullivan says:

Finding a way to get insurance against the exigencies of human life, of which illness is a prime example, is not socialism. It’s insurance.

By which statement he means government should help people get medical  insurance.

The assumption here is that free market capitalism will not produce sufficient medical insurance opportunities and therefore the government must intervene.

First of all, what do we mean by medical insurance. When you insure your house or your car, you don’t take out a policy that pays for replacing a leaking faucet or changing the oil. You insure against major risks such as fire destroying your house or smashing your car into another car or a tree; things that will cost lots of money. That’s what insurance usually is. Medical insurance, these days, is mostly not against major risks such as cancer or heart disease which require large expenditures to treat. On the contrary, medical insurance covers just about everything from colds to brain surgery; i.e., from the trivial to the important. It’s not really insurance at all; it is a pre-paid treatment expense that, depending on the coverage, can cost thousands to tens of thousands of dollars per year, often with co-pays. So, for starters, there’s a huge difference between regular insurance and medical insurance.

Then there are the laws, mandates and legal restrictions put on medical insurance by governments, local and federal. For instance, the fact that most people get medical insurance through their jobs. Why is this? People get on-the-job medical insurance because they get a tax break from the government. In this type of insurance, the government prevents you from dealing directly with insurance companies to negotiate a contract that would suit you and it prevents you from going out of state to get insurance. Since you don’t get to decide, the prices go up because you can’t go somewhere else for insurance. The government has killed the free market in medical insurance. Then the government adds all sorts of mandates on insurance companies. Yesterday (January 29) the government implemented its law requiring that health insurance plans cover mental and physical illnesses to the same extent. Recall that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the psychologists bible, says that the following are mental disorders:

• Academic Problem
• Acculturation Problem
• Body Dysmorphic Disorder
• Borderline Intellectual Functioning
• Child or Adolescent Antisocial Behavior
• Conduct Disorder
• Disruptive Behavior Disorder
• Female Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder
• Histrionic Personality Disorder
• Identity Problem
• Male Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder
• Malingering
• Neglect of Child
• Oppositional Defiant Disorder
• Parent-Child Relational Problem
• Partner Relational Problem
• Phase of Life Problem
• Reading Disorder
• Religious or Spiritual Problem
• Sibling Relational Problem
• Stuttering
• Transvestic Fetishism

So, how much will insurance companies have to raise their premiums to pay for some noisy brat diagnosed as having Oppositional Defiant Disorder. His "treatment" will cost us hundreds or thousands of dollars, when a spanking is probably the most effective thing to do.

We all lose when government decides to takeover what is seen as a social problem. A free market in medical insurance would lower premiums, let people decide what kind of contract they want or whether they want one at all. There are lots of people who do not want a medical insurance policy for a variety of reasons. Moreover, in the days before HMOs and government mandates, people who could not afford treatment were not turned away by doctors or hospitals. The same could still happen. Nowadays, however, the first thing they ask you in the ER is whether you have medical insurance, can they see your card, and only then, what’s wrong with you.

So, just because Hayek has said something, doesn’t mean we must believe it, especially when his argument is weak or incorrect.

 
From the BBC News:

The US has defended a proposed weapons sale to Taiwan following a furious response from China.

The US State Department said on Saturday that the sale contributed to “security and stability” between Taiwan and China, Reuters reported.

Beijing announced a series of moves against the US in retaliation for the proposed $6.4bn (£4bn) sale.

“Such sales contribute to maintaining security and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” said US State Department spokeswoman Laura Tischler, quoted by Reuters.

The US is the leading arms supplier to Taiwan and has a treaty obligation to provide it with defensive arms.

So you promote peace by selling weapons to people who either are already killing each other or want to kill each other. If Hawaii wanted to secede from the union and the Chinese started to sell weapons to Hawaii, how would the US government react? And we have a precedent in the Civil War where several states wanted to secede. The federal government under Lincoln went to war to prevent the secession. People here think the War Against Southern Independence was a good war. There’s a giant statue of Lincoln on the Mall in DC to commemorate Lincoln’s successful action in nearly destroying the sovereignty of individual states and promoting the power of the central government.

In the political standoff between Taiwan and China, the US should simply butt out. It’s none of our business. Another example of aggressive US interventionism all around the world. The winners are US arms manufacturers and the politicians who support them.

 
From McClatchy news:

The Obama administration plans to ask Congress to increase spending on the U.S. nuclear arsenal by more than $5 billion over the next five years as part of its strategy to halt the spread of nuclear weapons and eventually rid the world of them.

Yep. If you want to get rid of something, spend more money on it. Makes sense if you are a liar or totally nuts.

 
Republican attitudes to Obama’s proposed miniscule spending freeze were characterized thusly in a comment reported on the Washington Independent:

“Ninety-five percent of Republican candidates, officials, staffers and advisers do not give a rat’s ass about fiscal restraint or government size,” one strategist told TWI. “At the end of the day, 95 percent of them believe people want to hear about fiscal restraint, but ultimately want government to give them stuff. This is how we default to talking about tax cuts, not spending, because everyone is afraid that if you criticize a spending item, you’ll offend someone. Well, you will. But when you bankrupt the whole country, which Obama’s proposal is not going to stop, you offend millions.

I think this is not cynicism. There is a big chunk of people who talk about limited government (mostly repubs) but really do not want it when it comes to their paycheck from the government (social security and medicare) or government programs and policies that promote "national greatness" (i.e., war, occupation of other other countries, NASA, etc.).

Not that Obama is any better. At his meeting with republicans, he was asked if he would consider across-the-board tax cuts to really stimulate the economy. He replied that he would consider such cuts but not for Warren Buffett or the banking industry. In other words he was in favor of across-the-board tax relief so long as it wasn’t really across-the-board. And he wonders why people consider his programs more of the same old political bullshit.

 
In a statewide vote 2 days ago (January 26), a majority of voters in Oregon said yes to raising taxes on high income earners and on businesses. The tax increases were passed by 53 – 54 percent of voters.

This was a classic socialist vote. A majority of Oregon voters decided to tax other people in order to increase state government services to themselves. Isn’t it great to be able to use the law to force your neighbors to pay for things you want but will not have to pay for?

And the major contributors to supporting the tax measures were (surprise) the public employee unions. Private sector jobs will be lost but government employees will be happy. Great.

Nothing better illustrates the pernicious nature of socialists and the fact that taxes are simply the name attached to stealing other people’s money by force. Also note that, in this democratic and "fair" election, 46 – 47 percent of voters were simply told to go to hell and kick up their money. Democracy is certainly friendly to everyone, isn’t it.

 
Very sad news. J.D. Salinger, author of "The Catcher in the Rye", has died. Here’s Holden Caulfield:

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them.

I never knew how much Holden Caulfield and the Glass family meant to me until I read about Salinger’s death this morning. I actually started to cry. Well, I know, boo hoo, who cares. But I read Catcher when I was near Holden’s age and it really hit me hard.

RIP creator of one of my dearest friends.

 
Thanks to CoyotePrime and JMR Doug for commenting on this post to tell us that Richard Daughty has resumed writing his wonderful stuff on the Daily Reckoning.

Whee!!!

 
Very scary post by David Kramer on the LRC Blog about a man convicted of drunk driving even though he was asleep in his car which hadn’t been operated and would not start. His conviction was upheld unanimously by the Minnesota Supreme Court. Here is the original post.

So the Minnesota Court says you’re guilty of a crime you have not committed because you had the potential  to commit that crime. Amazing.

 
The 17th Amendment to the US Constitution says:

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislatures.

When vacancies happen in the representation of any state in the Senate, the executive authority of such state shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, that the legislature of any state may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.

This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.

The Amendment replaced this wording in the original Constitution:

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, chosen by the legislature thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote.

Immediately after they shall be assembled in consequence of the first election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three classes. The seats of the Senators of the first class shall be vacated at the expiration of the second year, of the second class at the expiration of the fourth year, and the third class at the expiration of the sixth year, so that one third may be chosen every second year; and if vacancies happen by resignation, or otherwise, during the recess of the legislature of any state, the executive thereof may make temporary appointments until the next meeting of the legislature, which shall then fill such vacancies.

In essence, the Amendment requires popular elections for the Senate, which was originally conceived as a body of ambassadors from each sovereign state, chosen by the legislatures of the states. The original idea was to insulate (to some degree) the passage of legislation from the democratic mob in the House of Representatives which might do dumb or disastrous things on the spur of the moment. The effect of the Amendment was to seriously weaken the power of the individual states and strengthen the power of the central government by divorcing control of the election of Senators from the state governments and passing that control to the vagaries of local majoritarian democracy. Senators were to be national political figures rather than representatives of sovereign governments.

One result of the Amendment was the creation of political dynasties. Senate seats are occupied for decades and a kind of royalty was created, such as the Kennedy lineage in Massachusetts, where a Senate seat is supposed to be passed down from one generation to the next in the same family, an interesting effect of democracy. The latest example of this process was the expected candidacy of VP Joe Biden’s son, Beau. Joe occupied a Senate seat for 36 years (how amazingly dumb are many voters in Delaware). But it’s news that Beau has decided not to run for the Senate, at least right now. This is news only because of the dynasty effect of the Amendment.

Another candidate for the Senate is Rand Paul from Kentucky. His father is Ron Paul and, as far as I can see, that’s his only so-called qualification for office. Apparently, some libertarians are OK with "libertarian" political dynasties and, indirectly then, OK with the 17th Amendment that helps create those dynasties.

Finally, so what? Am I asking for "ultra-purity" among libertarians? Yes. Once you start to compromise with the politicization of society, how do you know where to stop. Can you be moderately in favor of freedom? How much of it are you willing to give up? Remember this:

 
I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.
 
…………………………………………………– Barry Goldwater, 1964

 
From the Guardian:

Police in the UK are planning to use unmanned spy drones, controversially deployed in Afghanistan, for the ­”routine” monitoring of antisocial motorists, ­protesters, agricultural thieves and fly-tippers [someone who dumps waste illegally, especially on public land -- ed], in a significant expansion of covert state surveillance.

The arms manufacturer BAE Systems, which produces a range of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for war zones, is adapting the military-style planes for a consortium of government agencies led by Kent police.

Documents from the South Coast Partnership, a Home Office-backed project in which Kent police and others are developing a national drone plan with BAE, have been obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act.

They reveal the partnership intends to begin using the drones in time for the 2012 Olympics. They also indicate that police claims that the technology will be used for maritime surveillance fall well short of their intended use – which could span a range of police activity – and that officers have talked about selling the surveillance data to private companies. A prototype drone equipped with high-powered cameras and sensors is set to take to the skies for test flights later this year.

The Civil Aviation Authority, which regulates UK airspace, has been told by BAE and Kent police that civilian UAVs would “greatly extend” the government’s surveillance capacity and “revolutionise policing”.

It’s like watching a bowling ball running downhill. You can’t stop it. The surveillance never stops, the terrorist threat continues to rise, freedom has virtually disappeared, yet on they go, saving themselves from everything except sanity, peace and happiness. At some point, the whole structure of British society will fly apart.

 
Here’s a sample of a classic piece of pseudo-libertarian, illogical government loving from reason.com (promoted, of course, by that pseudo-libertarian statist, Andrew Sullivan):

2. To shrink government, you need to love government . Most liberals believe deeply in government. As a result, they sit on school boards, city councils, and regional planning boards. They become expert at navigating through the bureaucracy and know which bureaucratic levers to pull to make their policy vision reality.

Many conservatives and libertarians come from the world of business. They don’t particularly like government. They view it as merely a necessary evil. As a consequence, they rarely immerse themselves in the intricacies of governing, preferring to make their case from a safe distance.

Once in power, they tend to have far more difficulty navigating the complex terrain of the public sector. The result? From Ronald Reagan’s Grace Commission to the 1995 government shutdown by a GOP Congress, most high-profile attempts to shrink government fail.

Until small-government types better master the nuts and bolts of the public sector—how to design policies that work in the real world and how to execute on large public undertakings—their initiatives to downsize government will continue to disappoint.

The message is that, instead of trying to de-politicize society, libertarians should relish politics. They should learn how to execute on [sic] large public undertakings. In other words, if you’re opposed to government, you should learn to love it and join it to make it better rather than try to eliminate it. This reminds me of the sub-title to the movie, Dr. Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. The notion that libertarians should engage in the corruption (aka give-and-take) of standard politics in order to help government do great things is utterly ridiculous. It is an invitation to the destruction of libertarian ideas.

The authors (like other pseudo-libertarians) cite the Apollo moon landings as examples of when government was good:

3. The Apollo Moon Landings . A come-from-behind win in the space race. On time, on budget, and 40 years later still never repeated. A strong head of NASA, James Webb, and a start-up culture made this incredibly audacious effort reality.

So the US government was engaged in a race to get to the moon and won the race. Wowee! Nobody asked me if I wanted to spend my money on a space race. No; they just took it. And what has it given us? Basically nada. Yet this example of forcibly taking people’s money to spend on some big PR techno-stunt is an example of good government. It’s something that we should repeat and encourage. The authors simply have no clue about the meaning of libertarianism, property rights or individual freedom. The fact that government can accomplish something tells us nothing about whether government should do the job or how well it can/will do it. If the government decides to make pizza and succeeds in selling it, is that good? Is it a win?

If you love the government and want to join it in its efforts, you may call yourself a libertarian. But you ain’t.

Update, January 24, 10:46 AM: I should have included Ambrose Bierce’s definition of politics (from the Devil’s Dictionary): A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

And libertarians are supposed to love this?

 
The left wing collectivists are incensed that there is an actual opposition to Obama. How dare they have 41 votes in the senate! How dare they have the power to even slow down the Obama socialist agenda! And the lefties are also so afraid of freedom of speech that they’ll try to stop it in spite of the First Amendment. In reaction to the NOI decision that government must get out of the way of blocking political speech, we get this from the NY Times:

Two leading Democrats, Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York and Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, said that they had been working for months to draft legislation in response to the anticipated decision.

One possibility would be to ban political advertising by corporations that hire lobbyists, receive government money, or collect most of their revenue abroad.

Another would be to tighten rules against coordination between campaigns and outside groups so that, for example, they could not hire the same advertising firms or consultants.

A third would be to require shareholder approval of political expenditures, or even to force chief executives to appear as sponsors of commercials their companies pay for.

The political marketplace is expected to be chaotic; indeed, it was designed to be chaotic by allowing all  ideas to be spoken or printed. People like Andrew Sullivan, Keith Olbermann, the NY Times and the democratic party hacks in and out of congress are apoplectic over allowing real freedom of speech; i.e., the idea that anyone can speak, regardless of how rich they are.

The collectivists cannot stand the disorder of freedom. It’s one reason they favor a 2-party (well, really a 1-party) political system. Debate can be constrained and fresh ideas kept out of the political discourse. Their institutions are threatened by freedom. They are driven to tell you what to think and do and if you don’t think it or do it, they’ll force you into behavior acceptable only to them. "Ordnung muss sein", is the motto of statists everywhere.

Update, January 23, 10:24 AM: Predictably, Obama calls the court decision a strike at democracy itself. Democracy, according to Obama, means everyone is equal, not only before the law but in all other respects. So, if a group of people get together and spend their money to promote some political end, this is bad by definition because a group of people has more money than an individual and thus, the group can "drown out" the individual’s voice. Hmm. How did that work out with, say, Jesus Christ? Or, was it a strike against democracy when Adams, Jefferson Franklin, Madison, etc., got together their own money and printed up political pamphlets to start a revolution against Britain? The great constitutional lawyer who occupies the White House has no clue about what the constitution means.

 
The supreme court throws out part of McCain-Feingold which prevents free political speech about candidates at election time. The gist of the decision is that corporations and unions can spend what they like on political speech about candidates around that time. Sounds like no big deal, doesn’t it. But recall that when the bill was being debated in congress, people said it wouldn’t pass because it was blatantly unconstitutional. It passed. Then people said, well that’s OK because the congress knew Bush would veto the bill because it was blatantly unconstitutional. Bush signed it. The NOI acquiesced for a while but have now suddenly reversed themselves and discovered that the bill prevents political speech at the time it most needs to be free — just before elections. The battle is, however, never over.

Too bad that it is government that gets to decide the limits of government power and the meaning of the constitution.