Archive | July, 2004

Tyler’s post below reminded me of an observation I once heard when talking about something similar: At some point, a British Empire that included America would have become majority American. After all, the U.S. now has five times the population of the U.K., and while the immigration patterns would have been different had America remained […]

Would it have been so terrible if America had remained part of the British empire? Perhaps slavery would have ended sooner and WWI might have been avoided. Brad DeLong nonetheless endorses the Revolution: Remember that the political evolution of Britain toward democracy was not foreordained as of 1775. (Indeed, the pressure exerted by the example […]

“Woad trip,” as a throwaway caption in Slate‘s review of Arthur. (I also like the title, Arthur: On the Rocks, which I take it is an allusion to the other Arthur.)

Here’s the Defense Department order establishing it. Many thanks to Gene Fidell of the National Institute of Military Justice for the pointer. UPDATE: Marty Lederman (SCOTUSblog), who has thought a lot about the Court’s recent military detention decisions, has comments.

In support of Eugene’s post below, I recount the following story. I was a student at Yale Law School when the flagburning issue was at its apex during the Bush I-Dukakis campaign. The Yale Federalist Society had an dinner, at which the issue was discussed. At the end of the discussion, I asked for a […]

Clayton Cramer also writes (in a post aimed at supposedly “pointing out the absurdity of the liberal position”), that “Liberals do believe that” “burning an American flag is a form of free speech.” True, many liberals do (probably more than conservatives do). So did Justice Scalia and Justice Kennedy, who provided two of the five […]

Clayton Cramer e-mailed me this about the manure-spreading incident: [I]f burning an American flag is protected freedom of expression, perhaps spreading manure [as a political protest] is too. He was of course using it to suggest that flagburning shouldn’t be protected, not that manure spreading should be. I’ve never bought some conservatives’ harping on the […]

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, July 3, reports: Police on Friday arrested a man accused of spreading manure along the path of a gaypride parade last Sunday in Conway. . . . [The man is charged with harassment,] a Class A misdemeanor, carrying a maximum fine of $1,000 and up to a year in jail. The Conway […]

“Sedition” is more than just a cool song from Fiddler on the Roof (“Sedition, sedition! Sedition! Who, day and night, must counsel revolution, Stir up mobs of people, urge them to revolt? . . .”). It’s also the name of a crime, and a reader asks me: Given how narrow treason is, what’s up with […]

via Dan Drezner, a Chicago Tribune story on the myriad health benefits of coffee. (registration required). Though the virtues of coffee drinking may have been debated in the past, now there appear to be new reasons to rejoice over java. More and more studies have linked coffee consumption to a number of health benefits, including […]

From the Washington Post: Indianapolis native Kerry Edwards is feeling pretty good today about his decision to immortalize his name on the Web six years ago. On Tuesday morning, shortly after Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) announced that Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) would be his 2004 running mate, the 34-year-old bail bondsman and owner of www.kerryedwards.com […]

My friend and sometime mentor in matters libertarian Roderick Long responds to my post below about Michael Badnarik’s position on terrorism and 9/11. The following three propositions are distinct: a) The kind of interventionist foreign policy the U.S. regularly pursues is likelier to provoke terrorist attacks than to deter them. b) The specific attacks the […]

An e-mail from a reader leads me to give this brief refresher on treason. The Constitution defines treason thus: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of […]

Glenn Reynolds reports today that some of his readers are concerned that looking at an Instapundit Blogad featuring a nude will get them fired for fear of a sexual harassment lawsuit. He notes the massive censorious effects of sexual harassment law, a topic on which Eugene is the world’s leading expert, and on which I […]

I use Microsoft Word, and I’m generally pretty happy with it. If I’m wrong to be happy, that’s fine, but I’m highly unlikely to invest the effort to switch to another word processor. I would, however, like to be able to get the spell checker to ignore square brackets — [ and ]. I don’t […]