Category Archives: Current events

The Fallacy of Prevention

Gun Control Advocate: “We need more/better gun laws to eliminate gun violence.”

Gun Rights Advocate: “Gun laws do not decrease gun violence because criminals do not follow the law.”

Gun Control Advocate: “So we should just get rid of all laws because they fail to stop all crime?”

And that’s where this little exchange usually ends. The gun right’s advocate typically stutters through some non-sequitur argument that doesn’t at all address the apparent “gotcha” from the now smug gun control advocate. Sadly courses on logic are no longer taught in our schools, because if they were, we would easily spot logical fallacies such as this one. This is an example of a false analogy or comparison, that is, assuming two things are equivalent and inferring they must share the same properties. Not all laws are the same.

Laws against violations of person or property (murder, rape, theft, etc.) are primary laws. Their sole function is punitive. They prescribe the consequences for violation of the law. If the consequences are severe enough there may be a small preventive tendency but overall people breaking these laws really aren’t concerned with the fact that somewhere there are words on a piece of paper saying they shouldn’t do such and such. In short, these laws can only affect criminals (i.e. those who broke the law).

Laws like gun control (i.e. interventionary laws) are secondary laws. They attempt to prevent the violation of a primary law through interventionist procedural means. Whereas primary laws affect only their violators, secondary laws affect only non-violators of the related primary law. Prospective violators of a primary law simply ignore the demands of the related secondary law. Because there is no way to know who these potential violators might be, secondary laws must by necessity cast a wide net and attempt to inconvenience everyone. Sadly they fail in their attempt, they catch all the fish you don’t want and allow all others to escape. In short, these laws can only affect non-criminals.

And so the fallacy is exposed. Abstractly it is implied that gun laws (“B”) are beneficial because: eliminating primary laws (“Not-A”) is “bad”, therefore “A” is “good”, and because “A” is assumed to equal “B”, it follows that “Not-B” is likewise “bad”, and so “B” must be “good”. As I’ve shown above A does not equal B, and without that the argument fails.

Laws against murder ARE anti-gun laws. They are also anti-knife, anti-bomb, anti-poison, anti-anything that could be used to kill someone. Laws against specific types of weapons are a fear driven whack-a-mole style attempt to prevent future violence. The futility of this preventive approach is clearly seen in our nation’s prisons. In the most highly controlled, rights restricted environment one can imagine there are still drugs, there is still violence, and there is still murder. If preventive efforts fail in prison, how could they possible be expected to work in a free society? Some often cite Australia’s stringent gun controls laws of 1996 as proof that tight restrictions can “work” by pointing to the drop in gun violence since enactment. While such violence has dropped, what they conveniently leave out is that the statistics clearly show the rate of gun violence was already on a decades long decline prior to and after the 1996 laws. In fact armed robberies had a dramatic increase shortly following the new gun restrictions. I don’t suppose that had anything to do with the fact that criminals opted not to follow the law and instead kept their guns?

Smokers in California escape their fair share

I heard a story on NPR this morning about how California is doing something about that evil Obamacare rule that allows insurers to “discriminate” against the most unfortunate of those among us – smokers. Obamacare actually (gasp) allows insurers to charge up to 50% more on premiums to smokers! How unfair, doesn’t Obama understand that these poor smokers have no choice, they are poor helpless victims of the big evil tobacco companies! Apparently smoking is much more prevalent of a lifestyle choice among the “poor” – so where Obamacare provides the “poor” with “affordable” health insurance, the smoking allowance allows insurers to basically add back all the “savings” – yes, that is the world’s smallest violin you hear in the background.

Funny, somehow the “poor” can afford to buy cigarettes (anywhere from $300-$3000/year depending on where they live and how much they smoke), yet they can’t afford the additional premium on their insurance policy attributable solely to something they choose to do. “Affordability” is one of those words thrown around a lot without any thought to what it actually means. Affordable simply means that one prioritizes the expense. Affordability all depends on how you order those things in your life that you value. One could claim a private school education for their child is unaffordable – and that would be true if they choose to spend their money first on a larger fancier house, on fancier cars, on cable TV, on high speed internet, on new clothes every month, then yes, not much is left for a private school education. But, one could pay for the education first, and then with what is left over structure their life around that so that they live in a smaller house, drive older cars and then at that point they would find cable TV and high speed internet become the “unaffordable” goods. To claim that health insurance or any other good is “unaffordable” is to simply be proclaiming it is not the thing you most highly value. Now one might argue that a $10 million mansion is unaffordable to nearly everyone and no amount of prioritization will make it so, true enough. But we are talking about affordability within the context of normal consumer goods and services, not about super luxury goods and services for which their lacking in the market is a concern to anyone. No one is crying about the “unaffordabiilty” of 50 foot yachts among the general public.

Not that I agree with the mandates Obamacare makes upon insurers in terms of what they can charge and how they can determine what they charge but at least I can understand why those who support Obamacare don’t want insurers to discriminate based on characteristics we can not control (i.e. gender, age, health status) – you are who are and there is no choice in the matter. Of course this “equality” mentality just means those who cost insurers less must pay more to subsidize the more costly demographics (witness France, where female drivers must now pay MORE for their auto insurance because in the name of equality it was deemed unfair that safer, more prudent female drivers be charged less than their male counterparts). But come on, cigarettes? Please, this is ENTIRELY the choice of the smoker. Are they addictive? Sure, but it is not IMPOSSIBLE to quit, plenty of people do it all the time. They are treating smokers like they are helpless victims who have no control over themselves. Please, give me a break.

This story highlights all that is wrong with socialized medicine. Those who willfully engage in bad behavior that affects their health must not be made to bear any of the cost of associated with their behavior – that is the job for the rest of society.

War Against the Constitution

In the wake of the Boston bombing many of those who claim a deep and abiding respect for the Constitution show a curious tendency to ignore those parts of the Constitution that tend to interfere with their desire for instantaneous revenge (i.e. 4th, 5th and 6th Amendments). The desire for revenge is understandable. Those desires exist today just as they did 200 or 2000 years ago. However, human passions, being irrational as they are, must be put in check so that human reason may triumph in our collective attempt to mete out justice. Fortunately for us, the founding fathers of this country realized that perhaps there was a more ethical manner to ensure justice than relying on a pitchfork-wielding mob. Thus was born the 4th-6th Amendments.

Ensuring that everyone accused of a crime, no matter how heinous, is afforded their full Constitutional rights does not protect the guilty – it protects the innocent. It protects you. It ensures that if YOU are wrongly accused YOU have the right to demonstrate how your accuser’s evidence is flawed. The greater the heinousness of the crime one is accused of does not increase the likelihood of one’s guilt. If the accused is truly guilty, then evidence of that guilt should not be terribly hard to uncover.  A guilty verdict will be assured and the validity of that verdict made public. It is curious how the more sure people are of an accused’s guilt the more annoyed they get with the idea of “wasting time” on a trial. If you are that certain of the guilt then what could possibly be lost by burying the accused in a mountain of evidence at trial? To suggest trials are not needed because no one would ever be accused of a crime without evidence is to accept man as an infallible being.

Although some people have often desired to dispense with trials involving particularly gruesome crimes they had resigned themselves to the fact that the Constitution said they had to follow these rules so they just put up with it. But now the war on “terror” has given these types a novel avenue by which they can circumvent the restraints of the Constitution. It’s the same old ruse all totalitarian governments play: foment fear over an imagined or provoked enemy. In their fear the people will do anything the government tells them if they believe it will ensure their safety. But tangible enemies come and go. The ideal enemy for the state would be one that could never disappear. An incorporeal enemy such as the concept of “terror” is just such an enemy. But people aren’t quite that stupid, they need to see a real human face for their enemy. Simple enough – label anyone you believe to be on the wrong side of this war as an “enemy combatant” and “poof” their rights are gone, because the rules in war are different after all. This is not to suggest such “combatants” have done nothing wrong, rather that all should be allowed to prove as much.

Sadly these circumventions of the Constitution will become permanent, just as this state of war is now permanent – how would one sign a treaty with “terror” after all? These circumventions of the Constitution will take place on US soil because naturally “terror” can exist anywhere in the world. We can bomb our enemies abroad, but here at home, that would be too messy. At home we simply declare an emergency and invoke “temporary” martial law. Boston was sadly our first taste of what that martial law may look like: a band of heavily armed Gestapo barks orders at you at gunpoint to your face to vacate your house and then searches it to their heart’s content, without a warrant, all in the name of “law and order”.

The application of the label “enemy combatant” means one has no right to confront their accusers, to see the evidence against them or to even attempt to provide evidence showing their innocence. Better hope you don’t have a similar name or appearance to an accused “enemy combatant” or were in the wrong place at the wrong time – because you have no right to demonstrate that you aren’t the person they think you are. We should be wary of our clever traps, as we ourselves may become ensnared in them.

The Triumph of Spontaneous Good

What are the lessons from the recent Boston Marathon bombing? That evil does exist. But, also that good vastly outnumbers evil. The moment the bombs exploded the world witnessed evil engulfed by good as people ran toward the source of the blasts. Not just police or emergency medical personnel, but ordinary people who just happened to be there. Following the orchestrated disorder of sick and twisted minds came a response of spontaneous order to cure as quickly as possible the destruction that was wrought. Everyone helped as they were able, the strong carried the injured, the knowledgeable provided first aid, and runners, who had just finished a 26 mile marathon, ran further to local hospitals to give blood. Individuals came together spontaneously and voluntarily to fix what had been destroyed. These self-less acts only serve to undermine the narrative of the statist who believes mankind is fundamentally incorrigible and only through compulsive state coercion can any true good come about in society.

Now some might argue “first responders” who are supported through taxation played an essential role. You’ll get no argument from me on that, they did indeed play a vital role. However to imply, as David Sirota of Salon did, that such first responder would not even exist in society absent taxation is to reveal oneself to posses an extraordinarily limited imagination (“they should remind a tax-hostile country of the value of public investment — in this case, in first responders who miraculously limited the casualties” http://goo.gl/pPpaj). To question how such and such could exist absent the state is to join the intellectual ranks of those in the 19th century who would question the abolition of slavery (a government supported institution in society by the way) with their queries of: “but who will pick the cotton?”

Some might then argue how would we have caught the suspects absent the state providing an overwhelming police/FBI (military?) presence. Yes, indeed, how would we pick the cotton?  Of course with one suspect dead and another on life support through the process of capture it would seem the tool of the state is perhaps not the sharpest one in the shed. As they say “your tax dollars at work” – thanks, but I’d like a refund please as I didn’t get what I paid for. Those in charge of capture always try to take all the credit in these types of cases (publicized manhunt) but more often than not (as in this case) it is a tip off from that disorganized, decentralized mass we call “the people” that provides them with the “who” and “where” in order to make such arrests. Once again, spontaneous order of the good attacks and flushes out the cancer in our midst.

The tragic events in Boston only reinforce the idea that We the People are in fact fundamentally good and can take care of ourselves.

Monsanto Protection Act

Whether you are anti-GMO, pro-GMO, or couldn’t-care-less-about-GMO you should be angered and frightened not only by the content of what lawmakers slipped into the unremarkably named “H.R. 933: Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013” last week, but the manner in which they did so.

Why should you care? The inserted language sets a dangerous precedent. It does so by carving out an exception in which a regulatory agency (the USDA in this case) may become answerable to no one. Traditionally such agencies fall under the purview of judicial review, meaning their practices, policies, or actions may be halted either temporarily or permanently upon a judge or judges finding issue with their actions. The judiciary in this case acts as the only mechanism the people have to prevent such agencies simply doing whatsoever their heart desires. This bill inserts language that allows the USDA to simply ignore judicial opinion and proceed under their own unbound and unchecked authority. Even laws passed by Congress may be nullified by judicial review, but no such limitation would exist for certain decisions of the USDA.

What exactly is being permitted? For the full gory details please see Title VII, Section 735. In layman’s terms it says this: if a decision of the USDA is found to be invalid (by a court) with respect to USDA’s approval of a particular plant cultivation, then if a farmer, grower, farm operator or producer requests a “temporary” (“temporary” being defined no where in the statute) permit to cultivate said plant anyway then the Secretary of Agriculture is empowered to grant such a permit, i.e. completely ignoring any court finding to the contrary. Since this language was specifically inserted with the knowledge of the very real prospect of a court eventually overturning USDA’s approval of certain GMO-seeds (principally produced by Monsanto) it has been dubbed the “Monsanto Protection Act”. Monsanto need no longer worry about some meddlesome activist judge interfering with USDA approval of the planting of their seeds. This is just another example of crony capitalism at its most blatant. Big business helps lawmakers get elected and they in turn pass laws that benefit those same big businesses. I will pause for a moment while the irony that President Obama actually signed this piece of legislation into law sinks in. To those that believed Obama was all about the “little guy” and was going to stick to “big business” – I rest my case.

How did this even happen? The truly scary part is that this not at all unusual. These types of unrelated “riders” are routinely inserted into bills (recall the “rum rebates” in the fiscal cliff bill earlier this year?). In this case, perhaps anticipating the firestorm that would erupt, it was inserted anonymously. That’s right, our wonderful system of governance allows random bits of text to mysteriously appear in bills without any accountability. Even better they show up at the last minute so no one even knows they are in there (so I guess Nancy Pelosi was right after all, we really do have to pass a bill to find out what’s in it).

Some may say this was just an unfortunate breakdown of the “system” and is simply a sign that we have gotten “off track” and must “reform” or otherwise “fix” the system. That is a fool’s errand. The system does not, has not, and can never work. As long as a handful of people have the legal authority to hand out lucrative favors that everyone else must pay for or comply with then the whole system is doomed to go over a much larger cliff.

State Marriage Benefits Betray State Intrusions

Last week the Supreme Court heard oral arguments concerning two different cases that relate to the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). DOMA was signed into law in 1996 in order to delegitimize any attempt by the states to legalize homogender marriage by disqualifying members of such unions from receiving certain federal “benefits.” So even if a state did legalize and recognize such marriages they would always remain somehow second-class in terms of government-mandated benefits. However DOMA proved to be an irrelevant impediment and several states have since enacted laws recognizing homogender marriage. So, once again the question of federalism falls before the court: wherever federal and state law conflict, which shall take precedence? The constitution was written in such a way that state law supersedes in all cases except where the constitution has expressly delegated such authority to the federal government. Progressives typically fall into the category of those who believe the constitution to be a “living document” insofar as they routinely discover new “expressly delegated” authority that tends to align with their worldview. Conservatives however view the document more through an “original intent” lens. Oddly enough though the rolls are reversed with respect to DOMA. Now it is the progressives insisting that the constitution does not give Congress any implied authority to regulate marriage and it is the conservatives claiming there is clearly an unwritten mandate in the constitution to defend “pillars of our society” such as marriage. My, my, it seems the constitution can be all things to all people when it suits their partisan purpose.

The more compelling message of DOMA, which both sides and the media have managed to ignore, is the idea that there even exists such a thing as “federal benefits”. Every so-called benefit is connected in some way to some illegitimate intrusion of government in our lives. Government takes away our liberties and intrudes on our rights and then graciously metes them back out piecemeal as “benefits” for those that play nice and follow their rules. Consider the following contested benefits: Tax benefits (income and estate tax are immoral confiscation of productivity), insurance benefits (employers should have no role in providing insurance of any kind), Social Security benefits (Social Security is a fraudulent compulsive quasi disability/ponzi scheme that should not exist in a free society), immigration benefits (there should be no limits on immigration).

But the biggest intrusion of all: Marriage itself – the government, neither at the federal nor state level has any business whatsoever in regulating, validating or approving of marriage. Marriage (for legal purposes) is simply the voluntary association of one or more individuals for a specified or unspecified length of time. Advocates of marriage regulation base their argument on an appeal to the concept of government playing a role in maintaining the structure of society. There is only one problem with that argument: government has no such role. Churches may play that role for some and to the extent people freely associate with those churches and abide by those teachings that is entirely legitimate. But the state has no role in embodying in law the teachings of certain religious institutions.

Remember, democracy is a dangerous weapon as it cuts both ways. For example a law passed last year (by majority) in Denmark forces churches there to marry gay couples by some representative of that church. Using government to either require or forbid some action is equally wrong no matter who does it. All sides should join together in dismantling the ability of government to intrude on our rights. Government is a powerful weapon. We need to stop using that weapon against each other.

Internet Tax

“The word bipartisan means some larger-than-usual deception is being carried out” – George Carlin.

 

The above quote may be from a comedian but the sentiment is no laughing matter. Late last week the US Senate held a vote on a budget resolution and decided they would sneak in a wholly unrelated bill, the euphemistically named “Marketplace Fairness Act”. Sadly there was strong bipartisan support for this embedded bill (75 for 25 against). The putative goal of this legislation is to put brick and mortar stores on an equal footing with online retailers with respect to sales tax collection. Presently, if you purchase goods online from a seller that has no “nexus” (that is, no physical presence) in your state then YOU, not the reseller, are responsible for submitting the appropriate sales tax to your state. As I’m sure you’re aware this is hardly ever enforced (as it would be political suicide).

The politically expedient route then is to go after out of state retailers who have no voice or vote and shake them down for tax money. So apparently if Party A is harmed and Party B is not, it makes more sense to start harming Party B rather to stop harming Party A. Brilliant.

My goal is not pick through everything wrong with this bill (and there is a lot) but rather to suggest a simple and viable alternative. Instead of forcing retailers to keep track of a myriad of different taxing authorities and a multitude of filing deadlines and burdensome paperwork (the claim that this bill simplifies filing is a ruse), why not simply impose the sales tax on the source of the sale rather than the destination? This is how our current sales tax system operates. Brick and mortar retailers do not vary the tax they charge based on their customer’s zip code. There is no functional difference between a buyer driving out of state, buying a good, then driving back home versus that same buyer buying that same good on-line and paying a shipper to retrieve said good.

Internet based retailers should therefore collect sales taxes just as though the customer walked into their premises and made the purchase. Then they only have one tax rate and one taxing authority to deal with and their locality benefits from those sales just as they would from a local sale. This approach entirely undercuts the arguments of brick and mortar stores. 1) Most of the country has sales taxes so anything bought on line will not be “tax free” but will bear the cost of the local sales tax of the seller and 2) for every sale “lost” to a remote seller the local retailer can also “steal” sales by selling their wares on line (this is already taking place: Amazon and Ebay have become a virtual shopping mall of brick and mortar stores selling on line).

The only plausible objection to this plan would be that online retailers would move their operations into low or no sales tax regions of the country or that high tax region retailers would be at a disadvantage relative to low tax regions. Tough. If that is the case then either (a) those businesses can leave or (b) they can bring political pressure to bear on their LOCAL politicians to lower their rates. The tax competition arising from this system will tend to equalize tax rates across the country as they are shifted downward toward the absolutely minimum sustainable level (just as competition pushes prices down in any market). Source based taxing exposes the tax policies of each region to the worldwide “wallet voting” of potential customers. However destination based taxing limits interregional competition and removes the possibility of locals benefiting from lowered taxes due to outside tax competition. Government doesn’t like competition, so it is little wonder the destination based system is favored by the political class.

At the end of the day it’s a gamble: you can go with the destination taxing and gain taxes on internet sales to locals while losing out on taxes on internet sales to non-locals or go with source taxing and have the reverse. The former is an untested, complicated and burdensome system, the latter far simpler and requires no procedural changes from our current method of sales tax collection. Of course the simplest way to “level the playing field” would be to simply eliminate all sales taxes. But that is an altogether different discussion.

Theft by any other name

“The state is a gang of thieves writ large.” Murray Rothbard

It is curious that this simple fact is not more widely accepted, however given that the state itself has mastered the magician’s art of misdirection (via state apologists given a platform in the public media coupled with the indoctrination of our children into venerating the state) it should perhaps not be all that surprising. We remain as blissfully unaware of our cage as fish are to the invisible boundaries of their aquarium. But sometimes cracks develop in those transparent walls revealing the deceit that has been there all along. A case in point is the recent EU-IMF bailout of Cyprus’ troubled banks this weekend. For those whose eyes glaze over at the prospect of a discussion of Eurozone financial policy I will spare you the gory details. In fact, skipping the details and looking at the big picture makes the crime occurring all the more clear. The bottom line is that the Cypriot government is confiscating between 6.5% – 10% of all money on deposit in Cypriot banks (more precisely they are being forced to buy an equivalent amount of bank stock). The short narrative is this: Cypriot banks gambled away depositors’ money on bad financial bets, then turned to the government to bail them out, who on their behalf went before the EU & IMF with hat in hand begging for a loan lest all their banks go bankrupt. The IMF agreed to a loan based bailout only upon condition the Cypriot government could prove it had the tyrannical cojones to take what it wanted from the people thus assuring the IMF of the loan’s solvency (insofar as the solvency rests on the ability of the government to confiscate and repay). This is simply gang initiation at the state level. It is crony capitalism at its worst and most blatant.

However it is as Barack Obama would say “a teachable moment.” What the Cypriot government has done is no different than what our government did with the TARP and other bailouts of our banks in 2008-9. The only difference is form, the result is identical, namely theft of the citizen’s money in order to benefit the banking elite. The countries that use the Euro cannot simply print up more to their heart’s content as we can with the US dollar. Therefore the only way to obtain needed euros is to a) borrow them or b) take them. The US government has a third funding source, which is c) inflate them (which is just a variant of (b)). Of course no government is honest enough to say “we’re taking your money” – no, this is a “one time tax.” So while the Cypriot government will simply take what it wants from depositors through the front door, our government comes in through the backdoor and through the inflation tax chips away at the value of the money on deposit. Naturally the whole scheme was justified on “greater good” grounds in that had they not gotten the bailout then the whole banking system might have collapsed and all depositors might have lost their money. Yes, the whole “you might benefit if we help these other people, therefore you must provide us with the means to help them” argument (put forth by every persuasion of statist, from the so-called conservative that supports publicly funded schooling to the super progressive advocating socialized medicine) is forever the justification for any and all types of state sponsored intrusion into the lives of individuals.

So for anyone taking solace in the notion that such bank account confiscation could never happen here please realize that it already has in the form of inflation sponsored bailouts. As long as we maintain a system of fractional reserve lending, legal tender laws, a central bank (Federal Reserve) and government “monetary policy” we will never rid ourselves of the gang of thieves bailing out their big banking friends with our money.

Nullification

Following up on my post last week on jury nullification I would like to now delve into State Nullification.

Jury nullification is a right of the sovereign individual to exert their authority over that entity (government) whom they have created and granted limited authority to act on their behalf. Likewise, the states (acting on behalf of the sovereign individuals) created a federal government and granted to it some rights originally reserved by the states. ALL rights not specifically granted to it were reserved to the states or the people (10th Amendment). That means simply state nullification is a state right precisely because it is NOT mentioned in the constitution – anything not listed nor prohibited is by default a state right, not a federal right.

The mainstream media and the political elites condescendingly portray state nullification as some backwards invention of ignorant racists. Nothing could be further from the truth. They only betray their own ignorance of the historical, ethical, and philosophical validity of state nullification. Here are some of the common objections to state nullification:

1)    “Didn’t the Civil War settle this?” If by “settle” you are suggesting murderous violence is a legitimate method of dispute resolution, then no. All the Civil War “settled” is the notion of an “indivisible” forced union – literally the state equivalent of “until death do us part” (as in “I’ll kill you if you leave”). If you are suggesting that because the north won that makes any northern practice legitimate and any southern practice illegitimate, then given the fact that the northern states used nullification to nullify the Fugitive Slave Laws that would I suppose only legitimize the practice of nullification.

2)    “Ok, maybe nullification was used against slavery but it was also used to oppose civil rights laws, right?” True, but that is not so much an indictment of nullification as it is an indictment of democracy itself. Over the course of history democracies big and small have promoted laws inimical to civil rights. The “justness” of laws in a democracy do not scale with territorial area. If the bigger democracy is always justified in forcing its laws onto its smaller member states then one must conclude it would be wholly legitimate for a racist federal government to impose racist laws on non-racist member states. Democracy is the problem, not nullification.

3)    “Doesn’t the Supremacy Clause (of the US Constitution) trump any notions of state nullification?” No, and in order to understand why one must read the WHOLE clause and not merely cherry-pick the parts they like. It states: “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof… shall be the supreme law of the land…” The “made in pursuance thereof” is the operative phrase relative to nullification. Nullification is simply the right of a state to say such and such law has NOT been made in pursuance thereof THEREFORE it is illegitimate.

4)    “Yes, but isn’t it up to the Supreme Court to decide if laws are constitutional?” It may do so through what could be called horizontal nullification (i.e. the checks and balance system that exists between the three branches). However only the sovereign people, acting through their proxy the states, have the final vertical nullification authority over all three branches. To suggest the federal government should be the sole and final arbiter of its own powers is an open invitation to abuse. The fact that the federal government has discovered so many new powers for itself only underscores the legitimacy of these concerns.

If you would like to learn more about state nullification please visit Liberty Classroom/nullification, or purchase “Nullification” by New York Times best-selling author and historian Tom Woods. And if you are tired of being spoon-fed an incomplete version of history by the state run public school system and main stream media and would like to learn the truth for yourself please visit Tom Wood’s www.learnrealhistory.com.

1 – 1 = 0

Parental responsibilities and authority have well understood boundaries even though no formal written contract exists between parent and child. It is wholly non-controversial that any parent exceeding such boundaries should have their authority curtailed if not entirely rescinded. It is then a rather curious circumstance that when government, whose duties and authorities are clearly articulated in written forms (constitutions, charters, etc.), exceeds its legitimate authority it is considered nearly an act of treason to merely point out that its actions fall outside the scope of its authority.

Representative democracy (e.g. a republican form of government) is relatively insensitive to the will of the people insofar as the representatives are not obligated to act in every circumstance as would the people. This can be beneficial in tempering a mob mentality toward governance (tyranny of the majority), however that benefit can easily become a liability when rent-seeking special interests co-opt and corrupt the system (tyranny of the minority).

There does at least remain one avenue by which the people can expediently and directly make their voice heard: jury nullification. It is the final arrow in the people’s quiver against a tyrannical government. Georgia House Bill 25 (“Fully Informed Jury Action of 2013”) has recently been introduced into the Georgia state legislature. It would protect the right of the defense in a trial to build a case on the grounds of illegitimacy of the law in question. Jury nullification is already a de facto right of juries (in that jurors are not required to disclose their reasoning thus one is always free to rule based on their conscience). However judges (and prosecutors) typically prefer that jurors remain ignorant of this right as they feel the interpretation and application of “law” is their sole domain and that jurors’ only responsibility is to answer questions of fact (“did he do it or not?”). Judges will often outright prohibit any mentioning of nullification lest a mistrial be declared. House Bill 25 would end such prohibitions. This is a uniquely powerful check on government power insofar as juries are composed of one’s peers, not distant bureaucrats or politicians. If the citizens who voted in the politicians do not agree with what they are doing they have the right nullify what they are doing now as there is no guarantee that future voting will undo the harm that has been wrought. Just as jury nullification (and state nullification) was used to ignore unjust and illegitimate laws like the Fugitive Slave Law of the 1850s, it may also be used today to ignore similarly illegitimate laws related to drugs, unpasteurized milk sales, and similar victimless “crimes”.

Government is established when sovereign individuals convey certain rights to their local state government (while retaining all non-conveyed rights to themselves). Likewise the federal government was established when the states granted the federal government certain “powers” (see 10th Amendment to the US Constitution) while retaining all others not specifically conveyed. So, just as the individual can nullify certain state laws based on a breach of authority so too can the states nullify federal laws on a breach of constitutional authority. To argue that jury or state nullification is invalid is to argue that it is better that some be made the victims of immoral and unjust laws rather than sacrifice the appearance of unity of the polity.

I shall address next week several of the common objections to nullification. Stay tuned…