Liberty

Today Gary Johnson, GOP candidate for President in 2012, announced that he is updating his position on same-sex marriages versus civil unions. I support the legalization of same-sex marriage in my own state so overall I'm pleased to hear this announcement. I am also a little concerned about the language Gov Johnson used when he said that marriage should be up to individuals rather than the states. 

I'd like to see the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) go away and I would like to see the federal government recognize for tax and other legal purposes any marriage that was legal in the state in which it was performed. But I'd like state legislatures or the people of each state to make that call. If a state does not wish to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, I don't think the Federal Government ought dictate that they do. That seems almost as bad as DOMA.

Yesterday Gov Jerry Brown signed into law AB 499 which allows minor children age 12 or older to give legal consent for treatment for sexually transmitted diseases without parental consent or notice. This bill (now part of the California Family Code) has gained tremendous notoriety because of its association with the vaccine Gardasil, the same vaccine for which Gov Rick Perry of Texas has endured criticism recently. Gov Perry signed an executive order in 2007 which mandated that girls be vaccinated before entering the sixth grade. Gardasil prevents Human Papillomavirus infection of strains that have been shown to be the cause of cervical cancer. …go on, keep reading about Playing chicken with cancer

Today, the four California US Attorneys—at the orders of the Obama administration—are taking steps to shut down marijuana dispensaries in California. Dispensaries have been ordered closed. Federal prosecutors have sent letters to sixteen pot clubs and their landlords instructing them that their property will be seized if they don't shut down operations.

Why the Obama administration thinks it's important to waste resources on marijuana enforcement in California is unclear and frankly pathetic. The so-called war on drugs is an expensive boondoggle that does nothing but line the pockets of privately-run prison corporations and inflates law enforcement budgets while forcing law enforcement to turn attention away from violent crimes and crimes of fraud or corruption. …go on, keep reading about Obama to California: my autocracy beats your democracy

This post is the first in the Invisible Santa Bunny topic, so named because of a commenter's wry query about how the «Magical Santa Bunny of the Free Market» would address certain problems without legislation, combined with Adam Smith's famous «invisible hand» of the free market. It's a chestnut of libertarian rhetoric that problems will resolve themselves with market-driven private-sector fixes, and that those fixes both will be more effective and will better promote freedom. This topic explores that idea with practical questions and, hopefully, answers. …go on, keep reading about How do market forces prevent gas main explosions?

Update: this is a joke. Cpt Hill never said any of this. It was lifted from Col Jessep's monologue in the film A Few Good Men. It would be an appropriate response to Rick Santorum's answer to Cpt Hill's question, but it is entirely fictional. I'd thought it would be obvious, but it seems that quoting a movie that's almost 20 years old gets lost. I apologize to anyone who earnestly believed these to be Cpt Hill's words. 

Stephen Hill's reply to Rick Santorum really ought to be:

Senator, we live a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it, you? You, Senator Santorum? …go on, keep reading about A few gay men

On Thursday, nine contenders for the GOP nomination for president participated in a televised question-and-answer session hosted by Fox News and Google. As usual, I hesitate to refer to these events as «debates» because they really aren't debates. There's not enough time allotted to permit more than a soundbite on each issue and there are few real chances for rebuttal. They are all about the personalities and very little about the principles and issues.

Here is my take on the candidates' showing, in order of my general opinion of the candidate (not in order of how I thought they did Thursday evening, though there is a rough correlation) from best to worst. …go on, keep reading about September 22 GOP debate wrapup

Tonight at 6pm Pacific/9pm Eastern time, nine GOP presidential hopefuls will take the stage in a live question and answer session intended to familiarize Americans with the candidates. This will be the seventh so-called debate in the 2012 presidential primary season, and the second to include Governor Gary Johnson, who appeared in the first of these debates back in May but who has not been permitted to participate since. In a surprise (but welcome) decision on September 20th, Fox News invited Johnson to participate in the debate over the objections of the Florida Republican Party, a co-sponsor of the event.

Johnson was the Governor of New Mexico from 1994 to 2003, a republican elected and reelected in a predominantly democrat state. Unlike some republican governors elected to liberal states, he was uncompromising on fiscal policy, using his gubernatorial veto over 750 times in his eight years in office. This proves two things about voters that seem to be forgotten in today's political climate: that voters will back a candidate they believe has integrity even over one with whom they agree on policy issues (within reason, of course) and that voters are hungry to escape from the unholy alliances that party politics force.

Recently I listened to a Commonwealth Club discussion with Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch titled WWLD: What Would Libertarians Do? Gillespie and Welch are co-editors of Reason magazine, which I've never read, but is reputed to have a strong libertarian bent. The topic is of interest to me, as I have mixed feelings about libertarians. In the 1990s I was a registered member of the Libertarian Party. I voted for Harry Browne in the presidential elections of 1996 and 2000, and for Andre Marrou in 1992. …go on, keep reading about Libertarian: better adjective than noun

Most politicians deserve a little name-calling, but there are two labels—really two variations on the same label—that have become popular lately and really get my goat. They are RINO and DINO: Republican In Name Only and Democrat In Name Only. Even Libertarians call other Libertarians LINOs, Greens have their GINOs, and probably even Independents who get called IINOs even though I have no idea how to pronounce it.

I make an exception for the use of the phrase (but not the acronym) when clarifying the leanings of an entire party or group. It's commonly and correctly noted that Nazis were socialists in name only, and frequently there are claims that China is communist in name only. Those tend to be valid or at least not unreasonable claims. …go on, keep reading about WINO

After taking a shot at Rick Santorum about the apparent incongruity between his strict constructionist stance and his zeal for federal restrictions on abortions, I was gratified to see that I wasn't the only one to notice. The Volokh Conspiracy, one of the best law-oriented blogs out there, today has a post by David Kopel pointing out that Santorum and four other Republican presidential candidates have signed a pledge that states almost in the same breath that they will appoint strict constructionist justices to the Supreme Court and that they will promote and sign a law that almost certainly would not survive scrutiny by such justices.