In the fall issue of National Affairs, Johns Hopkins political scientist Steven Teles has an interesting article on what he dubs the problem of “kludgeocracy” in American government: In recent decades, American politics has been dominated, at least rhetorically, by a battle over the size of government. But that is not what the next few […]
Archive | Growth of Government
Using NSA Surveillance Data in the War on Drugs
By Ilya Somin on August 10, 2013 11:45 am in Growth of Government, Privacy, War on Drugs, War on Terror
On Monday, Reuters reported that the Special Operations Division, a secretive unit of the Drug Enforcement Administration is using NSA electronic surveillance data in the War on Drugs, and then deceiving judges and defense lawyers about the source of the evidence when it is used in criminal trials. As various experts quoted by Reuters point […]
NY appellate court rules 5-0 against Bloomberg soda ban
By David Kopel on July 30, 2013 2:02 pm in "Bullying" Bans, Administrative Law, Constitutional Law, Executive Branch, Food and Drink, Growth of Government, Health Care, New Class, Paternalism, Separation of Powers
The First Department of the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court has ruled 5-0 against NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s soda ban, in the case of In re New York Statewide Coalition of Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, et al. v. The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, et al. (The Hispanic […]
Canada Day
By Ilya Somin on July 1, 2013 8:56 pm in Canada, Economic LIberties, Federalism, Growth of Government, Sports and Games
Since today is Canada Day, this is an appropriate time to thank that nation for giving us most of the greatest Boston Bruins players, including Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito, Ray Bourque, and Rick “Nifty” Middleton (my favorite player when I was little). I even rooted for Canada more than the US in the 1984 and […]
Dick Cheney Unintentionally Explains the Dangers of the NSA Surveillance Program
In this recent article, conservative columnist John Fund highlights some interesting comments by former Vice President Dick Cheney: On Sunday, former vice president Dick Cheney addressed the dilemma many conservatives face in assessing the revelations about the National Security Agency’s data collection. On the one hand, they are suspicious of the federal government. On the […]
Public Ignorance About How Government Policy Works
By Ilya Somin on June 4, 2013 7:02 pm in Democracy and Political Ignorance, Growth of Government, Political Ignorance, Voting With Your Feet
NPR reports on an interesting recent article by psychologist Phil Fernbach and his coauthors, which finds that public ignorance about the details of policy has an important impact on voters’ political views: Should the United States impose unilateral sanctions on Iran for its nuclear program? Should we raise the retirement age for Social Security? Should […]
Obama Adviser Realizes that the Size of Government Matters After All
In his first Inaugural Address, President Obama famously said that we should not ask “whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works.” I criticized this indifference to the size of government in one of my very first posts of the Obama Presidency. More recently, however, longtime Obama adviser David Axelrod […]
Perils of Prosecutorial Discretion in a World Where Everyone is a Criminal
University of Tennessee lawprof Glenn Reynolds (AkA “Instapundit”) has an interesting short paper on the dangers of prosecutorial discretion in a world where the scope of criminal law has gotten so vast that almost anyone can be convicted of a crime if the prosecutor goes after them aggressively enough: Attorney General (and later Supreme Court […]
Does any government have the legitimate power to ban medical marijuana?
By David Kopel on December 10, 2012 10:25 pm in Constitutional History, Constitutional Law, Constitutional Theory, Criminal Law, Growth of Government, Paternalism
Ernst Freund was one of the Founding Fathers of progressive constitutionalism. His 1904 book The Police Power: Public Policy and Constitutional Rights argued for a vastly expanded understanding of the police power. (The police power, broadly defined, is a government’s power to regulate health, safety, welfare and morals. It is distinct from other government powers, […]
Public Opinion on the Role of Government
Commentators such as liberal E.J. Dionne and even libertarian David Harsanyi are claiming that the election results prove that Obama won a great referendum on the role of government in American society, achieving a mandate for expanded government intervention. The CNN exit polls tell a very different story. 51 percent of voters said that government […]
“Failure: Why We Need It”
That was the provocative title of a seminar earlier this month organized by the Istituto Bruno Leoni, Italy’s free market think tank. The event was the IBL’s 9th annual Mises Seminar. As is common at multinational seminars in Europe, the event and the papers were in English, which is today’s lingua franca among well-educated Europeans. My favorite […]
The Ruby Ridge murders, 20 years later
By David Kopel on August 22, 2012 11:48 pm in Criminal Law, Executive Branch, Growth of Government, Guns, Self-Defense, Targeted Killing, War on Drugs
The Prologue to my book No More Wacos: What’s Wrong with Federal Law Enforcement and How to Fix it, includes a section on the Ruby Ridge case. Much more on Waco and Ruby Ridge is available on the Waco page on my website.
Constitutional Separation of Powers vs. Parliamentary Government
In this interesting recent op ed in Canada’s National Post , my George Mason colleague Frank Buckley argues that parliamentary systems of government are less likely to become dysfunctional than separation of powers systems such as that of the United States: Before Standard and Poor’s downgraded U.S. public debt, Barack Obama mused that the American […]
President Obama versus the Constitution
By David Kopel on April 2, 2012 11:54 pm in Congress, Constitutional History, Constitutional Law, Constitutional Theory, Counter-Terrorism Policy, Executive Branch, Federalism, Growth of Government, Habeas, Health Care, History, Individual Mandate, Jefferson, Judicial Power, Obama, Presidency, Public Opinion, Supreme Court, Uncategorized, War on Terror
President Obama today fired his opening salvo in an unprecedented attack on the Constitution of the United States. Regarding the impending Supreme Court ruling on the health control law, the President said, “Ultimately, I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was […]
Nearing the end of the search for the non-existent limiting principles
By David Kopel on March 29, 2012 4:47 am in Commerce Clause, Constitutional Law, Federalism, Fifth Amendment, Growth of Government, Guns, Health Care, Individual Mandate, Necessary and Proper, New Class, Regulation, Supreme Court, Taxes, Uncategorized
With the Supreme Court probably voting on the constitutionality of Obamacare (a term the President proudly embraces) on Friday, the health control law’s academic friends are diligently attempting to do what the entire United States Department of Justice could not do after two years of litigation: articulate plausible limiting principles for the individual mandate. Over […]