The Liberty Squelching Nature of Free Stuff...

polifrog



Ben Stein:

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government
that requires every citizen to prove
they are insured . . . but not everyone
must prove they are a citizen.

Badges?  We don't need no stinkin' badges.



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Mississippi, Defending the Liberty of Even Those Unable to Vote...

polifrog

I know some of my libertarian friends will not agree with me in what is to follow, but so be it.  Most of them seem to bow out of the abortion issue while muttering something that includes the phrase  "... legislate social issues..." at any rate.

Salon:

Personhood amendments were once considered too radical for the mainstream pro-life movement, but in the most conservative state in the country, with an energized, church-mobilized grass roots, Mississippi could well be the first state to pass one. Initiative 26 even has the state’s top Democrats behind it.

How is Mississippi defending liberty?

• Humans by the very fact that they are human have certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
• Due to the fact that all necessary human genetic material is present, a fertilized human egg possesses inalienable rights.
• Thus, abortion is wrong ... because abortion because it infringes not only on the rights of another individual, but on the most basic of rights of an individual ... life.

So, it takes backward Mississippi to defend the liberty of the unborn from the born.

It seems Mississippi understands that diminishing the rights of one group for the benefit of another is as wrong when the individual is unborn as when the individual is enslaved.

Perhaps Mississippi learned something from history the American left has forgotten.

H/T EdCone

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Loosing the Mantle of Liberty in Iraq ..

polifrog




Where once conservatives beat the drum for liberty in Iraq, they currently beat the drum for obligation and respect for an ally. I am loyal to a fault so I have had great sympathy for the conservative argument as it related to Mubarak, but in the end I felt the potential for freedom and liberty outweighed any sense of loyalty to Mubarak.

Mubarak is gone now. Where does that leave us?

I believe the left hindered democracy in Iraq for political reasons but with democracy possibly on the march in the middle east that legacy becomes a political liability. Therefore they ignore the obvious success in Iraq in favor of defining the genesis of what may be the democratization of the Mideast as Egypt.

Though no effort of their own events have unfolded in Egypt such that democrats are attempting to claim the mantel of freedom and liberty after actively resisting it for years in Iraq. Chris Matthews has gone so far as to ask if what has happened in Egypt may be the start of the democratization of the middle east. He asks this despite the fact that there is a democracy currently in Iraq doing just that - prompting citizens of neighboring nations to question why they don't have self determination themselves.


If we (the right) don't start claiming Iraq to be the foreign policy success that it has become and the source of the desire for freedom felt by the citizenry across the Mideast then the left is going to define that source such that they are presented in the best possible light themselves when they should be sinking due to the political dead weight of resisting Iraqi liberty.

Should we really be so concerned with loyalty toward the now deposed Mubarak that we allow the party that profited politically from resisting liberty in Iraq to steal the mantel of liberty from us by taking advantage of the random events within Egypt?

It's time to move on - Mubarak is gone - the military is making the right noises ...

Are we the really the stupid party?


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Jury Nullification - Citizens Perched Above the Three Branches...

polifrog



Does no one find it as offensive to liberty as I that Judges often review a verdict prior to a jury's reading of their verdict? What is the point of a jury if a judge can simply set their finding aside on the grounds that the jury did not apply appropriate law? Depending on the state, Judges can do just that, set aside a jury's verdict when the jury decides to nullify (not apply) an egregious law used against a defendant. Unfortunately jury nullification is a check on governance that seems to be fading.

Frequently judges overturn guilty verdicts:

• Judge overturns Uniloc's record $388M victory over Microsoft
• Judge overturns overturns jury verdict in Parkland

Less frequently, but more frighteningly, judges can overturn findings of innocence where jury nullification is most effective:

• Judge Overturns Jury's Decision in Medical Malpractice Case
  

Martin's mother filed a lawsuit against Moscowitz alleging malpractice, however the jury in the case held that Martin's injuries did not result from negligent care.

In reviewing the case, Hurd said that he could not understand how a competent and impartial jury could have decided in favor of Moscowitz.

He entered a verdict against the doctor and established a date for a jury to decide the amount of damages to which Martin and his family are entitled.

Accordingly, I agree with Washington Rebel, TL Davis in his post promoting citizen action through jury duty:

I suggest we look at the unconstitutional laws and work as citizens to make sure they cannot be enforced. How? Volunteer for jury duty. I know, no one likes it, but when judges and Supreme Court Justices (like Stephen Breyer) sit atop their perch and cast down snide comments to us, pretending to offer “intelligent, wise counsel” all the while denigrating us simpletons for our presumption to know what the Constitution says, when they believe they are the only ones learned enough to decide that, it is time to take direct action.

Jury Nullification via Wikipedia:

The jury system was established because it was felt that a panel of citizens, drawn at random from the community, and serving for too short a time to be corrupted, would be more likely to render a just verdict.^{[citation needed]} It was feared that a single judge or panel of government officials may be unduly influenced to follow established legal practice, even when that practice had drifted from its origins. However, in most modern Western legal systems, juries are often instructed to serve only as "finders of facts", whose role it is to determine the veracity of the evidence presented, and the weight accorded to the evidence,^[2] but not the application of that evidence to the law. These instructions are criticized by advocates of jury nullification.

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