law
stcynic | January 27, 2004On the heels of Josh Claybourn quoting another blogger quoting a third blogger about the dangers of unrestrained liberty leading to chaos, I have 3 stories that illustrate that the impulse to control is still alive and well.
Example #1:
The first story comes from The Great Separation, a blog I took to task a few days ago for calling the city councilan who put up a 2000 pound Ten Commandments monument in front of city hall a "hero". But this time, I'm in complete agreement with him on an issue. He has an entry pointing to a resolution that is being submitted to the UN by someone named Anthony…
stcynic | January 7, 2004The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld Hewlett-Packard's right to fire an employee who insisted on posting anti-gay bible verses on his office cubicle in response to the company having posters encouraging respect for diversity in the office building he worked in. The diversity campaign, as the Chronicle reports, was the sort of empty sloganeering that anyone in the corporate world is used to seeing:The conflict started in 2000 after the company began implementing a diversity policy that was developed at staff meetings and put up workplace posters showing different employees, with labels…
stcynic | January 5, 2004Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor who blogs, has an excellent article in the National Review Online. He correctly points out that constitutional law is a good deal more complex than we often hear from conservatives throwing out such noble-sounding but mostly meaningless catchphrases as "original intent" and "strict construction". Speaking of the free speech clause of the first amendment, Volokh writes,This also shows the error of faulting liberal judges for "making up the law" in this area. Unfortunately, the First Amendment is so general that judges have to create legal rules that turn the…
stcynic | December 22, 2003Much has been made of the fact that the Massachusetts chapter of the ACLU has taken on a case defending NAMBLA, the North American Man-Boy Love Association, in a civil lawsuit arising from the kidnapping and killing of a 10 year old boy. There is no more controversial or emotionally-charged issue than this. NAMBLA is universally, and justifiably, viewed as a vile organization that advocates something that nearly everyone despises in the strongest possible terms. Unfortunately, that makes it a perfect target for demagoguery and superficial demonizing, and that is just what we have seen. One…
stcynic | December 19, 2003It has become a truism that the American people are "too cynical" about their government. We hear this repeated often, but I think the truth is quite the opposite. I think most Americans are still entirely naive about their government, even after having our trust betrayed by the government so many times. The nature of government - all governments - is to increase its power, to protect its privelege by abusing and circumventing the law and by expanding the scope of its authority. At no time is this tendency more obvious than in wartime.
In the US, as in most countries, we have a prevailing…
stcynic | December 16, 2003Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for finding this story:Joanne Webb, a former fifth-grade teacher and mother of three, was in a county court in Cleburne, Texas, on Monday to answer obscenity charges for selling the vibrator to undercover narcotics officers posing as a dysfunctional married couple in search of a sex aid.
Glenn Reynolds is right. If the police in Cleburne, Texas have the time and resources to set up a sting operation to nail someone for selling a vibrator to a married couple with a boring sex life, they should immediately lay off a good portion of that department as they are obviously…
stcynic | December 11, 2003I'll quote just the first part of this article:Groups of students, teachers and administrators from five Oakland County school districts are taking part in the Religious Diversity Initiative - a program funded by the Community Foundation of Southeastern Michigan and sponsored by the Oakland County Superintendents Association, the Michigan Region of the National Conference for Community and Justice, and the Jewish Community Council.
As part of the voluntary, nontaxpayer funded program, participants from the Berkley, Bloomfield Hills, Clarkston, Walled Lake and West Bloomfield school districts…
stcynic | December 11, 2003I've long been active in the battle over the teaching of evolution in public schools. One of the arguments that we hear quite often is the "Fairness Argument". It goes like this: There are two explanations for the existence of life on earth, either life evolved by "random chance" (evolution) or it was put here by a creator (creationism or "intelligent design theory"); since neither has been "proven", it's only fair that if you're going to teach one, you should teach them both and let the kids decide. To the average person, this argument sounds eminently reasonable. Who, after all, could argue…
stcynic | November 28, 2003No idea in science is as controversial as the theory of evolution. The controversy comes not from within science, but in that grey area where science and religion intersect. This is an issue I've been involved with for many years. Since my late teen years, in fact. I'm part of a group that administers the Talk.Origins Archive, which is probably the largest repository of information about the evolution vs creationism battle on the web. I'm also a founder and advisory board member of Michigan Citizens for Science and have worked closely with the National Center for Science Education for many…
stcynic | November 27, 2003Another book I've just finished rereading is People Rising: The Campaign Against the Bork Nomination, by Michael Pertshuk and Wendy Schaetzel. I was in college when Bork was nominated for the US Supreme Court in 1987, and at the time I was taking a course in judicial history. We ended up using the Bork nomination as a pretext for studying the issue for most of the course, so I did a great deal of research on Bork's judicial philosophy, his law review articles, speeches and decisions as an appeals court judge. The primary thing that sticks out in my memory about the entire affair was how…