From the article (link above):
Governmentium (Gv) has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton like particles called peons.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Perverse Incentives
This op-ed warns the U.S. not to follow European economies into a mesh of entitlements.
Linked from Cafe Hayek.
Swedes are the healthiest people in the world – and yet the country has the world's highest rate of disability. Assar Lindbeck, one of Sweden's best-known economists, notes that the social programs have made it acceptable to live off others and not to work.
Linked from Cafe Hayek.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Huckabee and the Cross
What's the big deal with this so-called cross? Truth be told, I wouldn't have noticed it unless someone pointed it out to me.
Sort of like all those people with no lives who claim to see images of penises looking frame-by-frame at Disney animations, or claim that if you play a Metallica record backwards it contains Satanic incantations.
Human beings are notoriously adept at pattern recognition, and seeing symbolism where there is none.
Consider the "cross" found at the WTC site. Two huge buildings, and how are they constructed? Vertical studs with crossbeams going across, fastened where they cross. Gee, do you think if the buildings fell down there's some slight chance that two pieces could be sheared off but still stuck together like so? Now, if the building fell and the steel beams mangled themselves into a perfect Star of David, or a Hammer and Sickle, that would be newsworthy.
Besides, the controversy only draws more attention to the ad and those who are inclined to support Huckabee will only be drawn to him in greater numbers. The guy's a rabid social conservative; I know this from the things he says, not from some fake "cross" in one of his commercials.
In Defense of Federalism
Link above.
I often take a lot of flak (or flack, depending on your position on the McCain/Obama divide) for defending federalism and states' rights because, of course, the hallmark federalist issues are slavery and civil rights, in which the federal government overrode the discriminatory policies of the southern states.
However, there's no reason a priori to think the federal government will always be right and the states always wrong. It's merely a historical accident that federalism has become a bastard issue - if you're for states' rights, then you support segregated schools drinking fountains and Jim Crow laws and slavery and poll taxes and grandfather clauses and all that.
But one need only examine the recent spate of medical marijuana cases and assisted suicide statutes put forth by any number of states, and the ways that the federal government is trying to override them. Here are states doing the right thing, and the feds overriding them.
The linked article gives yet another example of a state (California) trying to do the right thing, an (at least in principle) and the feds using their dramatically expanded powers (since the signing of the Constitution) to put the kibosh on it.
To paraphrase the tenth amendment, Power to the People, or to the States, respectively!
I often take a lot of flak (or flack, depending on your position on the McCain/Obama divide) for defending federalism and states' rights because, of course, the hallmark federalist issues are slavery and civil rights, in which the federal government overrode the discriminatory policies of the southern states.
However, there's no reason a priori to think the federal government will always be right and the states always wrong. It's merely a historical accident that federalism has become a bastard issue - if you're for states' rights, then you support segregated schools drinking fountains and Jim Crow laws and slavery and poll taxes and grandfather clauses and all that.
But one need only examine the recent spate of medical marijuana cases and assisted suicide statutes put forth by any number of states, and the ways that the federal government is trying to override them. Here are states doing the right thing, and the feds overriding them.
The linked article gives yet another example of a state (California) trying to do the right thing, an (at least in principle) and the feds using their dramatically expanded powers (since the signing of the Constitution) to put the kibosh on it.
To paraphrase the tenth amendment, Power to the People, or to the States, respectively!
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
On the Second Amendment as an Individual Right
Recently a lot of attention has been focused on the Second Amendment, in light of the fact that the Supreme Court will next year be considering an appeal of the DC Court of Appeals' ruling against the overarching Washington, DC gun ban. This will be the first time in about seven decades that SCOTUS has considered a Second Amendment case.
The Second Amendment reads,
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Historically, there have been two schools of thought regarding the 2nd Amendment. One, the "individual rights" school, holds that the Amendment recognizes a right held by all individuals. The other, the "collective rights" school, holds that the Amendment only guarantees a "collective right" held only by specific groups of people; specifically, the National Guard is usually mentioned as an example of a "militia" as stated in the first clause.
(Of course, there is a third school of thought which doesn't care what the Constitution says. These people will be ignored for the remainder of this argument.)
What I will argue is that the collective rights interpretation is nonsense when one considers the original intent of the Founders, which was explicitly to hold the Second Amendment as a right held by all individuals.
To do this we need to look at some history.
The Constitution was written and ratified in 1787. In the next few years after the ratification, Republican (aka Anti-Federalist) leaders, notably Jefferson, insisted that there be an addendum to the Constitution listing specific rights retained by the people, and explicit limitations on the power of the national government.
What was eventually ratified in 1791 came to be known as the Bill of Rights, consisting of a preamble and ten articles. The preamble explicitly states what I said above:
"The Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added[.]"
Now let us consider the first eight articles (setting aside the Second for now). Each of these seven articles, and more pointedly, every clause contained in each of these seven articles, falls into one of two categories:
(a) lists a specific right held by the people which cannot be violated by the national government
(b) states an explicit limitation on the powers of the national government.
One may examine the entire Bill of Rights here; what follows are some excerpts:
"Congress shall make no law..."
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated..."
"...and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime..."
"...the right of trial by jury shall be preserved..."
And so on.
In every one of these cases, jurisprudence has perennially held that "the people" as referred to in the above clauses in every case refers to individual human beings like you or I. In fact, we would live in a rather scary country if, for example, protection against cruel and unusual punishment, or the right to due process of law, were denied to individuals but guaranteed only in some nebulous, collective sense. (Though I should note that this is essentially what the Bush Administration is trying to do, although they don't even bother to couch it in Constitutional terms, preferring instead to use fear to rally support for their policies.)
What about the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, you ask?
Well, one of the chief arguments against the Bill of Rights went along the following lines... "If we sit down and list a bunch of the rights retained by individuals, what about the rights we don't enumerate? Will people just assume they don't exist and pass laws against them?" Hence the Ninth Amendment:
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
The counterpart to the above argument is, of course, "If we sit down and list explicit limitations of the national government, will the lack of other things we don't explicitly forbid be taken as implicit approbation?" The response to that argument was the Tenth Amendment:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
The Ninth and Tenth Amendments are just two more cases of the above, but instead of explicitly enumerating rights held by the people or limitations of the national government's power, they recognize the existence of unenumerated rights held by the people, and preclude the existence of unenumerated powers held by the national government. (So anyone who refers to "unenumerated powers" held by the Federal government is, quite frankly, blowing hot air.)
Now, let's return to the Second Amendment. From the above discussion, it should be clear that this Amendment must be recognizing either (a) a right held by individual people ("the people" meaning individual, ordinary human beings), or (b) an explicit limitation on the powers of the Federal government, or perhaps both (a) and (b).
Let's take the "collective rights" stance and say that the Second Amendment only guarantees the right to keep and bear arms to the National Guard.
Well, what is the National Guard, you may ask. Since it is fundamentally organized at State level, one may be tempted to argue that it is the modern equivalent of the colonial Militias and thus the rightful owner of the right to keep and bear arms.
However, nothing could be further from the truth. The National Guard depends extensively on funding from the federal government and uses federally owned equipment and bases. More ominously, the National Guard can be nationalized and called to service by the President (as is happening right now with Iraq). More to the point, if the President and your State's governor issue conflicting orders, the Presidential commands supersede the gubernatorial orders (as demonstrated most graphically in 1954 when President Eisenhower ordered the National Guard to assist in desegregation of Southern schools, over the objections of Governors Wallace of Alabama and Faubus of Arkansas).
The National Guard, when push comes to shove, is fundamentally an organ of the national government. Any power delegated specifically to the National Guard is thus, at the most fundamental level, a power delegated expressly to the Federal Government.
However, this would conflict with the entire theme of the Bill of Rights. This "collective rights" interpretation with the National Guard as the "collective" entrusted with this right, cannot, then, be the interpretation supported by the Founders.
Well, what was the "militia" of colonial times? In short, an unofficial volunteer force, often with Members providing their own arms and equipment, organized at State (or Colony, or local) level, with no requisite allegiance to, nor dependence upon, the central government. In fact, it was largely the Militias (and other unofficial forces such as Ethan Allan's Green Mountain Boys) which initiated the revolt against centralized English rule in the 1770's and gave birth to the democratic Republic that is now the United States.
Who were members of these "militias?" In short, anyone who wanted to be.
That is what the militias were all about. Individual people doing what they needed to do to assure that power stayed in the hands of the people, rather than a central government; the militia did not fight for a central government, it fought for the people (who may be for or against any particular central government).
While it is hard to say exactly what the modern-day militia is, it should be clear that it is not the National Guard, or any other organized branch of the armed services (all of which bear fundamental allegiance to some central government power rather than to the individual people).
The most logical interpretation is that the militia is all of us. We are the people. We hold the power. It's up to use to secure our liberties, and ultimately it falls to us to both defend ourselves against outside aggressors and to hold our own government accountable.
This is why the Second Amendment recognizes a fundamental, natural right (some would argue the most important right) held by each and every one of us.
The Second Amendment reads,
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Historically, there have been two schools of thought regarding the 2nd Amendment. One, the "individual rights" school, holds that the Amendment recognizes a right held by all individuals. The other, the "collective rights" school, holds that the Amendment only guarantees a "collective right" held only by specific groups of people; specifically, the National Guard is usually mentioned as an example of a "militia" as stated in the first clause.
(Of course, there is a third school of thought which doesn't care what the Constitution says. These people will be ignored for the remainder of this argument.)
What I will argue is that the collective rights interpretation is nonsense when one considers the original intent of the Founders, which was explicitly to hold the Second Amendment as a right held by all individuals.
To do this we need to look at some history.
The Constitution was written and ratified in 1787. In the next few years after the ratification, Republican (aka Anti-Federalist) leaders, notably Jefferson, insisted that there be an addendum to the Constitution listing specific rights retained by the people, and explicit limitations on the power of the national government.
What was eventually ratified in 1791 came to be known as the Bill of Rights, consisting of a preamble and ten articles. The preamble explicitly states what I said above:
"The Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added[.]"
Now let us consider the first eight articles (setting aside the Second for now). Each of these seven articles, and more pointedly, every clause contained in each of these seven articles, falls into one of two categories:
(a) lists a specific right held by the people which cannot be violated by the national government
(b) states an explicit limitation on the powers of the national government.
One may examine the entire Bill of Rights here; what follows are some excerpts:
"Congress shall make no law..."
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated..."
"...and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime..."
"...the right of trial by jury shall be preserved..."
And so on.
In every one of these cases, jurisprudence has perennially held that "the people" as referred to in the above clauses in every case refers to individual human beings like you or I. In fact, we would live in a rather scary country if, for example, protection against cruel and unusual punishment, or the right to due process of law, were denied to individuals but guaranteed only in some nebulous, collective sense. (Though I should note that this is essentially what the Bush Administration is trying to do, although they don't even bother to couch it in Constitutional terms, preferring instead to use fear to rally support for their policies.)
What about the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, you ask?
Well, one of the chief arguments against the Bill of Rights went along the following lines... "If we sit down and list a bunch of the rights retained by individuals, what about the rights we don't enumerate? Will people just assume they don't exist and pass laws against them?" Hence the Ninth Amendment:
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
The counterpart to the above argument is, of course, "If we sit down and list explicit limitations of the national government, will the lack of other things we don't explicitly forbid be taken as implicit approbation?" The response to that argument was the Tenth Amendment:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
The Ninth and Tenth Amendments are just two more cases of the above, but instead of explicitly enumerating rights held by the people or limitations of the national government's power, they recognize the existence of unenumerated rights held by the people, and preclude the existence of unenumerated powers held by the national government. (So anyone who refers to "unenumerated powers" held by the Federal government is, quite frankly, blowing hot air.)
Now, let's return to the Second Amendment. From the above discussion, it should be clear that this Amendment must be recognizing either (a) a right held by individual people ("the people" meaning individual, ordinary human beings), or (b) an explicit limitation on the powers of the Federal government, or perhaps both (a) and (b).
Let's take the "collective rights" stance and say that the Second Amendment only guarantees the right to keep and bear arms to the National Guard.
Well, what is the National Guard, you may ask. Since it is fundamentally organized at State level, one may be tempted to argue that it is the modern equivalent of the colonial Militias and thus the rightful owner of the right to keep and bear arms.
However, nothing could be further from the truth. The National Guard depends extensively on funding from the federal government and uses federally owned equipment and bases. More ominously, the National Guard can be nationalized and called to service by the President (as is happening right now with Iraq). More to the point, if the President and your State's governor issue conflicting orders, the Presidential commands supersede the gubernatorial orders (as demonstrated most graphically in 1954 when President Eisenhower ordered the National Guard to assist in desegregation of Southern schools, over the objections of Governors Wallace of Alabama and Faubus of Arkansas).
The National Guard, when push comes to shove, is fundamentally an organ of the national government. Any power delegated specifically to the National Guard is thus, at the most fundamental level, a power delegated expressly to the Federal Government.
However, this would conflict with the entire theme of the Bill of Rights. This "collective rights" interpretation with the National Guard as the "collective" entrusted with this right, cannot, then, be the interpretation supported by the Founders.
Well, what was the "militia" of colonial times? In short, an unofficial volunteer force, often with Members providing their own arms and equipment, organized at State (or Colony, or local) level, with no requisite allegiance to, nor dependence upon, the central government. In fact, it was largely the Militias (and other unofficial forces such as Ethan Allan's Green Mountain Boys) which initiated the revolt against centralized English rule in the 1770's and gave birth to the democratic Republic that is now the United States.
Who were members of these "militias?" In short, anyone who wanted to be.
That is what the militias were all about. Individual people doing what they needed to do to assure that power stayed in the hands of the people, rather than a central government; the militia did not fight for a central government, it fought for the people (who may be for or against any particular central government).
While it is hard to say exactly what the modern-day militia is, it should be clear that it is not the National Guard, or any other organized branch of the armed services (all of which bear fundamental allegiance to some central government power rather than to the individual people).
The most logical interpretation is that the militia is all of us. We are the people. We hold the power. It's up to use to secure our liberties, and ultimately it falls to us to both defend ourselves against outside aggressors and to hold our own government accountable.
This is why the Second Amendment recognizes a fundamental, natural right (some would argue the most important right) held by each and every one of us.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
My name in lights
I just put in my donation to the Paul campaign, then right away went back to the ronpaul2008.com homepage, and within a minute or two, I got to see my name flashed on the page under "recent donors!"
Tea Party '07
As of slightly after noon, the Paul campaign has raised ~2.4 million dollars! This is well ahead of the highly successful November 5th money bomb.
My prediction: 6-6.5 million for the whole day. The question is whether we'll beat Billary's record of 6.3 million in one day.
Donate early, donate often at ronpaul2008.com! Results plotted on many axes at ronpaulgraphs.com.
In that spirit, let me present an original top ten list:
Top Ten - No - ELEVEN (in honor of Spinal Tap) - Reasons NOT to Vote for Ron Paul:
11. If you work for the IRS or the Federal Reserve, you just might be out of a job.
10. Inflation may drop to perilously low levels, perhaps even zero.
9. There will be drastic reductions in the federal budget deficit.
8. If you don't work and are on the dole, you just might be in need of a job.
7. Do we REALLY need another Republican from Texas campaigning on a platform of smaller government and humble foreign policy?
6. Less likely to be fascinating Lewinsky-esque scandals for the tabloids.
5. Precipitous decline in worldwide anti-US sentiment and burning effigies of the US President.
4. No more exciting wars for oil.
3. Won't be able to laugh at terminally ill medical marijuana patients dying in federal prisons.
2. Habeas corpus. 24/7/365. And warrants required for wiretapping. Can America handle it?
1. Founding Fathers cease rolling in their graves.
My prediction: 6-6.5 million for the whole day. The question is whether we'll beat Billary's record of 6.3 million in one day.
Donate early, donate often at ronpaul2008.com! Results plotted on many axes at ronpaulgraphs.com.
In that spirit, let me present an original top ten list:
Top Ten - No - ELEVEN (in honor of Spinal Tap) - Reasons NOT to Vote for Ron Paul:
11. If you work for the IRS or the Federal Reserve, you just might be out of a job.
10. Inflation may drop to perilously low levels, perhaps even zero.
9. There will be drastic reductions in the federal budget deficit.
8. If you don't work and are on the dole, you just might be in need of a job.
7. Do we REALLY need another Republican from Texas campaigning on a platform of smaller government and humble foreign policy?
6. Less likely to be fascinating Lewinsky-esque scandals for the tabloids.
5. Precipitous decline in worldwide anti-US sentiment and burning effigies of the US President.
4. No more exciting wars for oil.
3. Won't be able to laugh at terminally ill medical marijuana patients dying in federal prisons.
2. Habeas corpus. 24/7/365. And warrants required for wiretapping. Can America handle it?
1. Founding Fathers cease rolling in their graves.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Arthur Laffer Sticks to His Guns
Most fascinating interview ever... featuring Arthur Laffer.
On taxes and incentives:
On Obama's proposal for demand-side tax cuts:
On taxes and incentives:
Tax rates aren't everything with regard to incentives to work. I would probably work at a 100% tax rate next to a nude modeling studio.
On Obama's proposal for demand-side tax cuts:
You've got to make it more worthwhile for someone to give up leisure time to work, or to give up consumption to invest. You've got to make the supply of work effort more attractive, and low-end tax cuts don't do that.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Cafferty on the war
The Democratic excuse has always been that they don't have enough votes to override a veto. Boo-hoo, my heart bleeds for you.
Yet in only 1 out of 40 attempts did it even get that far. In the rest it was the Democrats who backed down. Not because they didn't have enough votes - they have a majority in both houses. But because they couldn't get all of themselves to vote for the bill (even with additional help from antiwar Republicans), or backed down when confronted by Republicans.
Indeed, the one war bill this Congress did manage to pass was the one that gave Bush exactly what he wanted - more money to continue his war.
Instead, they should do what Kucinich has been saying all along: The war depends on funds which need to be allocated by Congress. No matter what side of the "unitary executive" claptrap you come down upon, the fact remains that the Congress controls the purse, and there ain't anything (short of scrapping the entire Constitution and starting over) that's going to change that.
They don't need to override Bush's veto.
They can send him all the bills they want containing pullout dates, conditions on funds, and the like. They have the votes to do so (and if Senate Republicans try to filibuster, it will be clear to all who is obstructing progress).
They can send him a new one every single day if they wanted.
And Bush can veto every last one of them.
And Congress needn't do a thing, because eventually the money that was last appropriated for the war will start to run dry, and without a positive action from Congress, no new money will be forthcoming.
And if the Republicans tried to slip one by and send Bush a no-strings-attached funding bill, Senate Democrats could filibuster. And they only need 40 votes to do that; last I checked there were 50 Democrats in the Senate (not counting Joe Lieberman of course).
Taxes in Denmark
The Laffer curve in action, and the resulting brain drain of a marginal tax rate that tops out at 63%.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Divorce's Silent Victims
It was okay when children were the ones getting shafted, but now we find that divorce is melting the polar ice caps. And that's just wrong.
From the Washington Post: Divorce Found to Harm the Environment With Higher Energy, Water Use
From the Washington Post: Divorce Found to Harm the Environment With Higher Energy, Water Use
Monday, December 3, 2007
In Which France is Dumb
Canal Plus, the country's leading pay-TV channel, must spend 20% of its revenues buying rights to French movies. By law, 40% of shows on TV and music on radio must be French. Separate quotas govern prime-time hours to ensure that French programming is not relegated to the middle of the night.
Guess what? It's not working.
Quod Me Nutrit . . .
The other day (actually, it was today), a friend asked me about Joseph Schumpeter's theory of creative destruction. Here's what I told him:
Creative destruction is the term for what happens when economic & technological progress renders some workers (or ways of producing) outdated. These relics of a bygone economy meet the fate of textile-mill seamstresses, stagecoach drivers, manufacturing workers in the US and chimney sweeps. People who bred the leeches that doctors used to "treat" patients. Portrait painters in the era before photography. People who used to craft--painstakingly, one-at-a-time--things now mass-produced by machines.
It's called creative destruction because the net result is a good thing: economic progress, which benefits everyone, even though there are short-term losers. Without creative destruction, we'd all still be living in caves and working on our own subsistence farms.
It's sort of like when a musician gets trumped by an even better musician. The new hotshot attracts attention and market share from the first guy, who soon finds himself out of a job. Society is better off with the more skilled musician on the scene, with his more pleasing music, but the mediocre musician who was there "first" will resist the change and denounce it.
Creative destruction is the term for what happens when economic & technological progress renders some workers (or ways of producing) outdated. These relics of a bygone economy meet the fate of textile-mill seamstresses, stagecoach drivers, manufacturing workers in the US and chimney sweeps. People who bred the leeches that doctors used to "treat" patients. Portrait painters in the era before photography. People who used to craft--painstakingly, one-at-a-time--things now mass-produced by machines.
It's called creative destruction because the net result is a good thing: economic progress, which benefits everyone, even though there are short-term losers. Without creative destruction, we'd all still be living in caves and working on our own subsistence farms.
It's sort of like when a musician gets trumped by an even better musician. The new hotshot attracts attention and market share from the first guy, who soon finds himself out of a job. Society is better off with the more skilled musician on the scene, with his more pleasing music, but the mediocre musician who was there "first" will resist the change and denounce it.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Big Government: Chicks Dig It.
Here's John Lott with a depressing but accurate column on the link between women's suffrage and the growth of government.
Lott is also the author of Freedomnomics, a critical response to Freakonomics that's absolutely delightful. Find out why price gouging is OK, why campaign finance reform makes political race less competitive . . . and more!
For decades, polls have shown that women as a group vote differently than men. Without the women's vote, Republicans would have swept every presidential race but one between 1968 and 2004.
Lott is also the author of Freedomnomics, a critical response to Freakonomics that's absolutely delightful. Find out why price gouging is OK, why campaign finance reform makes political race less competitive . . . and more!
Saturday, December 1, 2007
In Defense of the Public Defender
Interesting article by Radley Balko, above.
While as libertarians we may argue in general that the state should spend less money on various things, is this one of the exceptions where we should spend more?
Also consider the following from SCOTUS Justice Hugo Black: If the state aims to take away someone’s freedom, the defendant has an “absolute, unqualified right to compel the State to investigate its own case, find its own witnesses, prove its own facts, and convince the jury through its own resources. Throughout the process, the defendant has a fundamental right to remain silent, in effect challenging the State at every point to ‘Prove it!’ ”
Thus this could be considered as an example not of the state spending money to increase its own power, but as a means of checking Nifong-esque abuses by itself. Checks and balances, in other words, within the judicial system.
Given that the government has created a legal system so complex and intricate that the average person is not fit to defend himself or herself in court, is it not the government's prerogative to provide legal counsel to the accused, at their own expense if necessary?
(Of course, one could and should argue that the legal system maybe shouldn't be so complicated, and we maybe shouldn't have so many damn laws, but seeing as that's not going to happen anytime soon, this is a stopgap measure.)
While as libertarians we may argue in general that the state should spend less money on various things, is this one of the exceptions where we should spend more?
Also consider the following from SCOTUS Justice Hugo Black: If the state aims to take away someone’s freedom, the defendant has an “absolute, unqualified right to compel the State to investigate its own case, find its own witnesses, prove its own facts, and convince the jury through its own resources. Throughout the process, the defendant has a fundamental right to remain silent, in effect challenging the State at every point to ‘Prove it!’ ”
Thus this could be considered as an example not of the state spending money to increase its own power, but as a means of checking Nifong-esque abuses by itself. Checks and balances, in other words, within the judicial system.
Given that the government has created a legal system so complex and intricate that the average person is not fit to defend himself or herself in court, is it not the government's prerogative to provide legal counsel to the accused, at their own expense if necessary?
(Of course, one could and should argue that the legal system maybe shouldn't be so complicated, and we maybe shouldn't have so many damn laws, but seeing as that's not going to happen anytime soon, this is a stopgap measure.)
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