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Concerns about Two Friends

Posted by The Hermit Crab on Thursday, December 31, 2009 1:31:18 PM
As regular readers of this blog (both of you) know, I have among my dwindling number of friends a friend who I refer to as Libertarian Tony.  He is an intelligent fellow, with no more blind spots than most intelligent people, and fewer than most.  He persists in believing that the southern slave states had the right to secede from the United States in the secession winter of 1860-1 merely because they lost an election (thus breaking their contract with the other states despite the absence of non-performance by the other states), but I chalk that off to his extreme libertarianism.  (It is an interesting historical fact that when John Quincy Adams introduced a petition from citizens of Haverill, MA calling for the dissolution of the Union in - I believe -1842, southern representatives demanded that JQA be censured by the House for the crime of having called upon its members to commit high treason.)   However, he recently told me that he hasn't read Michelle Malkin's Culture of Corruption because he tends not to read "mainstream" sources.  Two points in this concern me:
 
Can anyone give me the definition of "mainstream sources" that would include the feisty author of
In Defense of Internment, in which Malkin defends the Rossevelt policy of interning Japanese-Americans in camps after Pearl Harbor?
 
More importantly, I am already concerned because my friend frequents crank sites like LewRockwell.com and reads and sends me works by dishonest "historians" like Thomas Woods.  By the policy embraced by him, one will end up being educated disproportionately by cranks, without even the common knowledge given by reputable sources like Michelle Malkin or by honest libertarians like those at the Cato Institute.  Tony may end up like Ronald Reagan's classic quip about the liberals (I quote from memory here, but I have the substance spot-on), "It's not that our opponents are ignorant.  It's just that they know so much that just isn't so."
 
 
 
 I'm also concerned about my neo-conservative friend A.  I can accept that she differs from me on how we chose to spend our leisure time.  I read (non-fiction, usualy history or current events) or watch documentaries.  She watches TV or movies.  What worried me is that when last we spoke, she said (with the annoying air of superiority characteristic of the formerly liberal) "I prefer to look ahead and not behind."  Have we really reached a stage in our country's life when otherwise intelligent people can think themselves superior because they watch movies or television instead of reading history or watching documentaries?  If so, it explains how we find ourselves in such a mess today.
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Enforcing the 10th Amendment Today

Posted by The Hermit Crab on Tuesday, September 29, 2009 2:12:07 PM
My friend LT asks me how the states can enforce the 10th Amendment today (truthfully, he asked me weeks ago and I forgot that I hadn't answered him).  It seems tricky and difficult, but there are ways in which state governors and legislatures can begin to push back against the federal leviathan.  I am no lawyer, but here's my first thoughts on the matter:
 
The first step is what several states have already done, which is to formally inform the federal behemoth that they are taking back there constitutional powers in the areas in which the federal government has unconstitutionally intruded itself.  The next will be to pass legislation to forbid any government entity in the state from co-operating in the enforcement or implementation of any unconstitutional federal mandate.  (Please note that I do not mean to imply that the so-called "sanctuary cities" actions would be justified by this process.  The securing of our nations borders and dealing with those who enter illegally is a proper federal function.)
 
The next step would be trickier.  It would involve refusing to send any money to the federal government to be used for unconstitutional purposes.  This would involve calculating how much of the money collected in a state goes to these purposes, in proportion to the total federal levies collected.  Then these funds should be embargoed, ideally to be returned to the taxpayers.  (Yes, I can hear you saying "good luck with that".)  I suppose a case could be made that some of the funds might be held for the state to use to fight the inevitable court battle.
 
As I said, I'm no lawyer.  These are just my humble thoughts on the matter.  None of this would be easy.  Of course, rebelling against the most powerful nation on earth wasn't easy, either, but a few thousand scrappy, idealistic patriots pulled it off over 200 years ago.
 
If we do not try, we will never succeed.
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