In an otherwise generally sound call for separation of church and state, 2%Co had this to say about democracy in Dixie (1789-1865):

. . . These slaves didn’t always like their lot in life, but according to your logic, Mrs Gong, they should have just shut up and slaved away. Hey, rule by the majority, right? They even had a nifty way of making sure that the white folks stayed in the majority — they made black folk equal to only 3/5 of a person. What a great deal! . . .

I put my quixotic toe in:

I’m surprised to see this [common] misconception propagated by such enlightened people. . . . If the slavers had their way at the Convention of 1787, slaves would have been counted fully, not 3/5. It was the Northerners who wanted slaves counted for zero. . . .

After going around a couple of times, 2%Co apparently agree with this point (though to avoid conceding that I said something accurate they present it as their own), but insist that it supports their original statement — and threaten to delete any further posts from me. It appears that they have done so, so I’ll repeat my conclusion here (as best I can recall it):

Now I admit I’m not clever enough to see how these statements can both be accurate, viz that it was in the interest of the same faction to reduce the representation of slaves in the census and to increase it; or why, given that slaves had no vote, any nifty trick was needed to ensure they remained a minority. If you can resolve this seeming contradiction, I’ll be delighted at learning something new; if you can say “oops” and move on, I’ll be impressed with your integrity. Since you refuse to do either, I guess I’m left with the hope that another reader – if you have any – will help me out.

On Thursday, I somehow stumbled onto the site of The Two Percent Company (hereinafter “2%Co”), “an informal group of folks who are concerned about the current direction of our country and our world.” Maybe I followed a mysterious link, maybe I was searching for something else; at any rate, the page I found was a critique of the Libertarian Party’s platform. (2%Co rightly point out that the LP contradicts itself on family matters, a subject from which I recuse myself, as I’m unlikely ever to be a father.)

On several points, 2%Co said in effect “this is just plain stupid” without giving any hint of argument. So I wrote:

Have you ever tried *asking* a libertarian why they don’t expect disaster to result from implementing their platform? Or do you just assume that none of them have ever thought beyond the sound-bite?

2%Co’s reply said in part,

Assuming for a moment that you are a Libertarian (we could be wrong, since you haven’t told us that you are), . . . .

I gave a summary of my history with the Party (1990-6), adding:

On principle I’m an anarchist, because otherwise I’d advocate coercing others to actively support (at least through taxes) schemes that they may find repugnant, and that revolts me. But in practice I imagine I’d be comfortable with a “meso-libertarian” regime.

Their mail also led me indirectly to their blog entry on the same subject, and I posted four brief comments there. Rather than respond to my specific remarks on gun control, medicine, devolution, neutrality, immigration and transportation, 2%Co chose to make an issue of my anarchism (which I had not mentioned there); and like an ass I took the bait. In an attempt to bring that thread back on topic, I’ll confine further remarks on anarchism to my own blog. Most of you will likely find it dreary reading. ( . . more . . )

Some conservatives, like my old schoolmate Eric Rasmusen, say that rather than excluding tainted evidence (i.e., evidence acquired in violation of the Fourth Amendment) from trials, courts ought to admit whatever credible evidence exists and punish the cops for the illegal search. Eric makes an interesting point about the exclusion policy:

That is a remedy that is useless to someone whose house was searched who was innocent of any crime, since the evidence wouldn’t be useful against them anyway. Rather, our current policy is to only compensate guilty criminals, and, by putting the the compensation in the form of evidence suppression, to compensate them precisely to the extent that they deserve punishment. The compensation has no relation whatsoever to the degree to which the search was illegal.

Radley Balko says:

For my upcoming paper on no-knock and short-notice drug raids, I’ve researched probably close to a hundred examples of botched drug raids, where cops clearly conducted a middle-of-the-night raid on an innocent person or family. Thus far, I haven’t found a single incident in which police themselves were ever charged with a crime for either raiding the wrong home, or shooting someone once inside.

Can this practical immunity be changed by a wave of the wand? What DA will prosecute a cop for bringing in, y’know, someone that the DA wants to prosecute? (Does England still allow private prosecutions?) What jury – routinely screened of anyone likely to question authority – will convict a cop who, like Starsky & Hutch, bends the rules a bit for the greater alleged good?

Roderick Long points out parallels between A Journey to the Centre of the Earth and The Hobbit.

I find that I wrote in private mail a few years ago:

I’d divide legislation into three broad classes: that concerned with the structure and management of the state itself; codifications and harmonisations of existing custom (basic criminal law, the Uniform Commercial Code); and economic interventions, what Hayek and I disapprove of.

Funny that I haven’t thought of that taxonomy since. Can you improve on it?

Wouldn’t it be cool if the blogosphere could save a life? Radley Balko is on the case. (Cited by Gene Healy.)

It is disputed whether the warrant authorized a no-knock entry into Maye’s apartment, but why should that have any bearing on the case? The criterion for self-defense is whether Maye reasonably believed that grave danger existed, and by definition if the cops broke in without warning Maye necessarily could not know whether or not they were “authorized”.

Cops need to recognize that, when they execute a no-knock warrant, they are deliberately making themselves look like felons.

We have reluctantly concluded that Pillow brings more chaos into our household than we need.