New Drug Danger: Placebos!

Great comic:
http://gocomics.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c5f3053ef0134859a632a970c-pi

New danger, ban placebos, yes?

;-)

Re: "Looking for Loughners Would laxer commitment rules make us safer?"

My comment to a Reason article, title above, at 

 http://reason.com/archives/2011/01/19/looking-for-loughners#comment_2093940

Another way to look at this kind of problem is to see it as a set of tradeoffs, rather than a situation with a clear, crisp solution.

On the one hand, making involuntary commitment easier increases the risk of taking away the freedom of people unnecessarily, even opening opportunities for people to game the system to get rid of annoying relatives, enemies, rivals. In the old days, remember, that was the complaint: Too many harmless people locked up. Books, plays, and movies with this theme were common at one time: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Harvey with his six-foot imaginary rabbit, The Curious Savage, and even Miracle on 34th Street.

So we changed the rules, and now it's much harder to commit someone involuntarily. This really means that the tradeoffs lie in the direction of not locking up someone who eventually becomes dangerous, and thus innocent people losing their lives -- sometimes just the crazy person, who commits suicide when he could have been helped.

As we move the slider back and forth, we trade security for society on the one hand and concern for the individual on the other. If we choose to change the laws to make involuntary commitment easier, we have to recognize that the tradeoff is that we will have people who will be committed who shouldn't be; it's inevitable. And if we don't change the laws, we will have people die at the hands of insane people; that, too, is inevitable.

Of course, admitting to tradeoffs is not the way to win in politics or in public forums, to we tend to absolutism: Our way is best, not simply better, it is without negative tradeoffs or costs, and the other side's ideas are uniformly bad, period. We win arguments that way; we don't get closer to any useful truths.

Misunderstanding the First Amendment (in re: Assange and Wikileaks)

In an excellent article by Jacob Sullum of Reason Magazine, "Is Julian Assange a Journalist? For First Amendment Purposes, It Doesn't Matter"  , the author argues that the First Amendment is not restricted to journalists.


In the comments section, a lengthy dispute revolves around the applicability of a 1917 law restricting release of secret documents, and whether Assange qualifies for "protection" under the First Amendment if he's not a US citizen. This comment regarding the latter point is typical:


"Since when does the first amendment apply to those not living in the United States?"


This goes to the heart of a serious misunderstanding of the First and other Amendments making up the Bill of Rights. It's a mistake I see repeated endlessly in the press and from the lips of pols.

The First Amendment does not "apply" to specific people; it does not "guarantee" the right of free speech and press; it does not carve out an exception to the infinite power of the State; it is not a limitation that should be worked around or bypassed when inconvenient.

The First Amendment (and the other 9) is an *emphatic reminder* from the Founders that the Constitution GIVES NO POWER OR AUTHORITY to the U.S. government to exercise any control over speech and press. Period. The Constitution does not grant such power, and this amendment underlines the point, and *attempts* to block workarounds by ambitious politicians and bureaucrats. It emphasizes the point that the government "shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press."

If the government is granted zero authority to limit free speech and press, the question of whether the individual in question is a citizen of the U.S. is completely irrelevant, as is the question of whether he is a journalist. The First Amendment does NOT say "The government shall make no laws regarding freedom of speech or of the press -- for citizens, or for journalists as defined by the government."

Does it?

No interpretation of the First Amendment can create or invent authority for the government to make laws restricting freedom of the press or freedom of speech. If you happen to find a 1917 law that appears to say otherwise, then it's an argument for viewing that law as an unconstitutional power grab by the government -- that law does not override the First Amendment.

I am repeatedly disappointed to see conservatives and liberals alike view the Constitution as an inconvenient block to Righteous Action, one that needs to be bypassed regularly -- often by tortured interpretations of other parts of the Constitution that serve to make the Constitution and its Bill of Rights into pure nonsense (hence the "Ink Blot" interpretation of the 9th and 10th Amendments).

The Constitution is a (limited) grant of authority to the federal government, beyond which it may not go. It is not a list of citizen rights. Citizens have all rights not otherwise limited by the grant of authority (and there's an amendment that says that too, which is also generally ignored, and with which you are likely not familiar either).

Surprising article in NY Times on Ron Paul's rising star in Congress....

"Ron Paul, G.O.P. Loner, Comes In From Cold" is the headline, but they mean his appointment to the chair of the House subcommittee on domestic monetary policy, which oversees the Federal Reserve as well as the currency and the valuation of the dollar -- his favorite subjects and his bete noire combined into one handy package.

The story is both fair and richly interesting. Give it a read! (I have been a Paul enthusiast for more than a decade, long before he was anybody more than "Dr. No" of the House.)

"Governance in the Age of Wikileaks" -- TNL

A colleague, Tristan N. Louis, digs deeper into the whole Wikileaks controversy than you've likely read elsewhere -- in his three-parter (be sure to read all three parts) he considers the illegal actions of government opponents to Wikileaks:

http://www.tnl.net/blog/2010/12/12/governance-in-the-age-of-wikileaks-part-1/

Breaking the law by supporters of Wikileaks:
http://www.tnl.net/blog/2010/12/12/governance-in-the-age-of-wikileaks-part-2/

and freedom of expression in the age of Wikileaks:
http://www.tnl.net/blog/2010/12/12/governance-in-the-age-of-wikileaks-part-3/

Well worth reading all three, for a fully rounded perspective!

mac

Drug Decriminalization in Portugal: Lessons for Creating Fair and Successful Drug Policies | Glenn Greenwald | Cato Institute: White Paper

Drug Decriminalization in Portugal: Lessons for Creating Fair and Successful Drug Policies | Glenn Greenwald | Cato Institute: White Paper

This is important reading as California prepares to vote on marijuana legalization. Portugal made radical changes a decade ago -- how did they do it, and was it a success?

Time to Reconsider our Overseas "Defense" Commitments....

This letter appeared in the WSJ today, 8 Oct. 2010, and I agree with it entirely; my emphasis added:

Less Government Means Less Defense Spending, Too

Arthur Brooks, Edwin Feulner and William Kristol claim that military spending is not the prime driver of our current fiscal crisis, but the Pentagon accounts for 23% of the federal budget ("Peace Doesn't Keep Itself," op-ed, Oct. 4). It is inconceivable that this spending should be exempt from scrutiny in a time of soaring deficits.

Rather than Congress constantly writing a blank check, the process of military budgeting should begin with a discussion about security necessities and their costs. That isn't a discussion that Messrs. Brooks, Feulner and Kristol seem anxious to engage in—unsurprisingly, since all three support the disastrous military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Of course, cutting spending without a corresponding reduction in commitments is a recipe for overburdening service members taxed by too frequent deployments to far-flung places. But it is already obvious that most of what America spends on its military—often erroneously labeled "national defense"—really defends others who can and should defend themselves.

It's time for advocates of free markets and limited government to recognize that a vast military presence around the world is utterly inconsistent with those ideals. If we agree that government intervention domestically often has unintended, harmful consequences, we should recognize that the same principle holds true internationally, in spades. If we believe that the Constitution created a government whose most important duty is to "provide for the common defence" and "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity," we should not be so willing to deploy the sharp end of that government's power in support of those who are not parties to our unique social contract.

The Brooks-Feulner-Kristol approach to military spending amounts to another form of foreign aid, a massive wealth transfer from Americans to non-Americans, helping them finance generous social welfare systems. It is time to get our allies off the dole.

Ed Crane

Christopher Preble

The Cato Institute

Washington