Fighting City Hall

In the first few sentences of the very first essay (A Citizen’s Manifesto) in my book To My Countrymen, I suggest that a good citizen doesn’t run away from fighting City Hall, that he indeed engages City Hall when he must, and that he wins – every time.  I wrote this essay two decades ago, and I meant it to suggest that part of our collective powerlessness is our own doing.  If we aren’t willing to fight for what we want, it is our own damn fault that we don’t get it.  And that when we do fight, we always win (yeah, and I know that the fight takes time and effort, and sometimes persistence).

The Libertarian Creed

I have a friend who is going to vote the Libertarian line this election cycle, and I applaud him for it – over the wrong-headed protests of those who mindlessly chant “you're wasting your vote.”  He is right to vote third party, and I have argued the point over and over again in my book To My Countrymen, because we must break the stranglehold of our antiquated and mischievous two-party system.

I thought it was Thomas Jefferson who wrote "that government is best that governs least."  But, evidently it was Henry David Thoreau, no slouch as American thinkers go!  So, perhaps Thoreau is the godfather of Libertarian thinking.  Pretty good lineage!

The opening words of the 2016 Platform of the Libertarian Party of the USA are these: “As Libertarians, we seek a world of liberty; a world in which all individuals are sovereign over their own lives and no one is forced to sacrifice his or her values for the benefit of others (shades of Ayn Rand).”  And “We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual.  …  We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.”  Damn, sign me up!

Judicial Review

The pre-eminent job of the Supreme Court is to decide whether a particular law is Constitutional.  This is what we have been taught for well over 50 years so it must be true, no?

No!  That is just so much bull-shit!  The Supreme Court is the court of last resort; it is the last place that an unlucky defendant can go for JUSTICE!

Deciding what law may or may not be Constitutional is called “judicial review.”  In Constitutional circles, the very idea that judicial review is a Constitutionally enumerated power of the Court is controversial.  John Marshall, in Marbury v Madison, 1803, asserted the Court’s power of judicial review, and he did so in a way that compelled his enemies to accept his decision.  So, we have over 200 years of the Court’s right to the power of judicial review.  Yet there are still scholars who claim that judicial review is not Constitutionally sanctioned as a power of the Court.

Pro-Life

As abortion is one of America’s premier divisive issues, Americans should be pretty clear what “pro-life” means.  But I am not so sure; I think that there is a lot of confusion about who really is “pro-life.”