The Libertarian Party has broken new ground; they’ve successfully petitioned the FEC for the right to sell their mailing lists (original). By “sell their mailing lists,” I mean “sell them to any random bulk mailer who wants to send me more junk mail.” This allows the LP to work around some of the unfortunate side effects of the BCRA (original), which prohibits political parties from accepting money from corporations. ...
Orin Kerr nails it over at the Volokh Conspiracy, which is as good a time as any to launch into a discussion of my own anti-war feelings. This post summarizes my opinion on a lot of the arguments we’ve seen on both sides. I believe that Bush wants to invade Iraq in order to expand American presence in the region. I think he also believes, quite accurately, that Saddam is a very bad leader and that regime change in Iraq will be a net good for the world — but that’s not the primary reason, it’s a nice side effect. ...
People occasionally accuse me of being a sensible liberal, or likely to lose my liberal blogger badge (original). This is pretty warming, since I don’t really think of myself as a liberal; I think of myself as an anarchocapitalist hampered in his desire for untrammeled freedom by the practicalities of realpolitik. I.e., if I could push a button and remove all government from the world, I wouldn’t do it. I think that, unpaired with some serious education about enlightened self-interest, the results would be very bad. In the interim, I tend to lean towards the left, because I think the left is somewhat more likely to preserve the freedoms I care the most about without imposing the restrictions I find most distasteful. ...
I always approve of primary sources. Here’s a great place to get them: DoD News. It’s the central page for Department of Defense news items, and most interestingly includes email lists for DoD press releases and so on. I get the transcripts of all the DoD press briefings. It’s always interesting reading.
Lessig has posted the opinions in Eldred vs. Ashcroft. Here’s the majority decision, here’s Stevens’ dissent, and here’s Breyer’s dissent.
This post (original) does an excellent job of summarizing and linking to various reactions to Lessig; I recommend keeping an eye on it over the next few days.
Lessig reports that the Supreme Court has rejected the Eldred challenge to the Sonny Bono law, 7-2. John Paul Stevens and Stephen Breyer dissented. More details as this develops.
Another interesting DoD briefing yesterday, this one on the all-volunteer armed forces. Obviously, this was prompted by Rangel’s draft proposal. Worth reading, for some interesting statistics. The most interesting point is that black Americans join the military in a proportion roughly equivalent to the proportion of blacks in society as a whole; the 30% number we’ve heard a lot about is due to the fact that blacks tend to remain in the military at a higher rate than do other ethnicities. Seems to me that the question to ask, therefore, is not “why are there so many black people in the military” but “why is the military such a superior alternative to the rest of society in so many cases?” Maybe it’s something the military is doing; maybe the rest of society just sucks harder. Probably a combination of both. I’d like to see more investigation of this, in any case; I bet there’s something to be learned there. ...
The Instapundit comes out in favor of racial internments: “The wrongfulness in the World War Two internments, after all, wasn’t that they happened, but that they were unjustified. Had significant numbers of American citizens of Japanese descent actually been working for the enemy, the internments would have been a regrettable necessity rather than an outrageous injustice.” He also quotes reader email, which includes the sentence, “The citizen/alien line—so crucial to the wrongfulness of the Japanese American internment—has now been breached.” ...
Addendum to the below: the direct trigger point was in fact a US diplomat pushing the issue; we called North Korea on their nuclear program. OK, that’s fair. I think that the essential conclusion is the same, though. I’m honestly not sure why Bush isn’t standing up and saying “This happened because we pushed them, and it’s a perfectly acceptable price.” At this point I think that’s a reasonable stance. ...