Paul M. Jones

Our "social contract" is not a valid contract in any normative sense of the term, since the supposed parties never agreed to it. The standard response is that you agree by choosing to remain in the country. But that only works if the government already owns the country and so is entitled to decide who is permitted to live there, a claim that is itself based on the supposed social contract, which makes the argument circular.

A better metaphor than a contract would be a peace treaty. Different people in a society have different, and sometimes inconsistent, views of what each is entitled to. Since none of us has an unlimited ability to enforce his view, in practice we settle for some compromise, the best outcome we think we can get given the existing balance of forces. Viewed as a contract that is a contract made under duress, so not binding--but then, the same is true of a peace treaty, since the usual alternative to signing it is having people continue to drop bombs on you.

via Questions for Independence Day Evening, Art Carden | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty.

"If you're not paying for something, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold."

See also, "News isn’t the product. Viewers and readers attention is the product, and it is sold to advertisers."

"People don't vote their interests; they vote their ideologies." See also, "Politics is not about policy."

The woman accused them of rape. The video showed otherwise, police and prosecutors said. What happened that night led to the vicious beating of one of the men two days later.

Last Friday, a Sacramento Superior Court jury convicted Jasmine Levanna Kurre of felony assault likely to produce great bodily injury and of another count of felony battery.

Jurors acquitted Kurre of the misdemeanor filing of a false police report and of another felony count of robbing the beating victim of his cellphone.

Unfortunately for Kurre, 27, the man's friend shot the video, showing her laughing and carrying on with the two alleged rapists – hence, the lack of charges against them and the lodging of the misdemeanor false-report accusation.

via Sex video clears men accused of rape - Crime - The Sacramento Bee.

The last holdout on allowing the public possession of concealed guns, Illinois joined the rest of the nation Tuesday as lawmakers raced to beat a federal court deadline in adopting a carry law over Gov. Pat Quinn's objections.

Massive majorities in the House and Senate voted to override changes the Democratic governor made just a week ago in an amendatory veto.

Some lawmakers feared failure to pass something would mean virtually unregulated weapons in Chicago, which has endured severe gun violence in recent months -- including more than 70 shootings, at least 12 of them fatal, during the Independence Day weekend.

"This is a historic, significant day for law-abiding gun owners," said Rep. Brandon Phelps, a southern Illinois Democrat who, in 10 years in the House, has continued work on concealed carry begun by his uncle, ex-Rep. David Phelps, who began serving in the mid-1980s. "They finally get to exercise their Second Amendment rights."

via Illinois enacts nation's final concealed-gun law.

A woman who made a string of false rape allegations against five men in eight years was behind bars last night.

Leanne Black, 32, repeatedly cried rape with bogus sex assault reports to police after rowing or breaking up with her former partners.

In one case, Black claimed she had been drugged and raped. In another she told police a boyfriend kidnapped and molested her.

A court heard that her innocent partners would have faced up to five years in jail if they had been found guilty of such serious sexual allegations.

However, Black was herself jailed for two years, with a judge condemning her actions, telling her that genuine rape victims would be undermined by her lies.

Bringing a false charge of rape should carry the same penalty as if the accused had been convicted of rape. Via Leanne Black is finally jailed after FIVE false rape allegations against her ex-boyfriends in eight years | Mail Online.

I am not a legal scholar, so I need someone to explain it to me. In what sense do we live under the rule of law if the Congress can pass a bill, the president can sign it, and then the president can unilaterally announce that it is not going to be implemented as planned? Telling me that this kind of discretionary power is routinely exercised by the executive branch is not an answer. In what sense is legislation that permits such discretion the “rule of law”? Isn’t the essence of the rule of law that ordinary citizens can know what the rules are? Can be confident that the rules are not guidelines but, you know, The Law?

We live in a country where the law has not only become unintelligible, written in thousand-page chunks, but has morphed into a giant mass of silly putty that can be reshaped as our rulers find convenient.

via The Obamacare employer mandate delay is another symptom of our crumbling ‘rule of law’ | AEIdeas.

Consider the problem of polio, a disease that killed tens of thousands and ruined the lives of millions around the world in the 1930s through 1950s. One solution was to try to ease the suffering of polio victims, developing better iron lungs and systems of braces, wheelchairs, and prosthetics to make it possible that they could live some kind of life. This industry was enormous, and highly profitable.

The other solution was to develop a vaccine, the one that Dr. Jonas Salk finally perfected in 1952, and which showed itself to be effective within a decade. By the late 1960s, polio had been reduced sharply in the United States. Now, it is almost unknown here and in most of the rest of the world. Of course, the makers of braces, crutches, and iron lungs took a beating, because no one needed their products anymore. But the total costs to society were dramatically reduced, even accounting for the “loss” to the equipment manufacturers.

When it comes to waste management, we are at the stage of manufacturing braces and iron lungs.

via Recycling Is a Red Herring | Cato Unbound.

... when countries like Russia and Iran say the US is simply too untrustworthy to manage the Internet, no one will be able to argue.

We can't fight for Internet freedom around the world, then turn around and destroy it back home. Even if we don't see the contradiction, the rest of the world does.

via Schneier on Security: Blowback from the NSA Surveillance.

A bureaucracy is bad. A politicized bureaucracy is worse. A paramilitary politicized bureaucracy is nuts. And, in fact, evil. There is no reason in a civilized society why the Deputy Assistant Commissioner of Paperwork should have his own SEAL Team Six.

The police state is not "coming" -- it's *here*. Abolish the IRS and replace it with the Fair Tax. Via When Your W-2 Meets an AR-15 | National Review Online.