I’ve periodically featured folks on the left who have rejected gun control.

• In 2012, Jeffrey Goldberg admitted gun ownership reduces crime.
• In 2013, Justin Cronin explained how he became a left-wing supporter of gun rights.
• In 2015, Jamelle Bouie poured cold water on Obama’s gun control agenda.
• Last year, Leah Libresco confessed that gun control simply doesn’t work.

Now it’s time to look at another person who has changed his mind.

Here are some excerpts from a column in the Des Moines Register written by a long-time supporter of gun control.

I was 14 years old when John Lennon was killed — it affected me deeply and it was the biggest event that led to my anti-gun feelings. As I got older, my heroes were JFK, RFK and MLK, which furthered my anti-gun sentiments. …I thought the Second Amendment was not relevant to our modern-day society and it should be repealed. …In 2012 I tweeted: “@BarackObama please repeal the 2nd amendment and stop the @nra.” …I was a lifelong Democrat. In the 2016 presidential debates I watched…Hillary Clinton… I voted for her. …I was a little turned off by…the NRA.

But he began to change his mind as the election was happening.

I decided to leave San Francisco and to build a house in Washington. …as my house was being built I started wondering what I would do in the event of a home invasion. I knew right away becoming a gun owner was going to be the best way to defend myself.

Sounds like he’s part of the 22 percent in my poll who support the 2nd Amendment because of concerns about crime.

But he also enjoyed the process of becoming proficient.

I gave it a lot of thought and decided I was going to purchase a gun and learn to shoot… I started going to the range and discovered that I really enjoyed target shooting.

His philosophical shift apparently wasn’t because he was convinced by the NRA, but rather because he grew increasingly concerned about the left’s radical opposition to private firearms (something I’ve noticed as well).

I gradually came around to see how extremely anti-gun, anti-Second Amendment the left was. For a large portion of them, their ultimate goal is a full gun ban and to repeal the Second Amendment — I know I was one of them.

And even though he no longer considers himself on the left, he doesn’t want his friends on that side of the debate to misinterpret his views.

To my easily confused friends on the left — no, I am not calling for violence; no, I am not a terrorist, no, I am not racist. Peace.

Since the author’s overall perspective has changed, I guess he doesn’t belong on my “honest leftists” page, but his shift on gun rights is nonetheless worth noting.

Hopefully he’s now sufficiently “woke” on guns that he would be part of the resistance if his former fellow travelers on the left ever tried a gun ban.

To close on a humorous note. Here’s the visual version of my IQ test on guns.

Other examples of gun control satire can be found here, here, here, and here. Along with a bonus David Hogg edition.

To keep with tradition, it’s time to expand my collection of 4th-of-July columns.

• In 2010, I contemplated the issue of libertarians and patriotism. My view, for what it’s worth, is captured by this t-shirt.
• In 2011, I pondered research about the partisan implications of patriotism and also created a satirical Declaration of Dependency for my left-wing friends.
• In 2012, I shared an inspirational video about freedom and individualism from Ronald Reagan.
• In 2013, I discussed the proper meaning of patriotism in the aftermath of revelations about NSA snooping.
• In 2014, I decided on a humorous approach with one a Remy video about government being “up in your grill.”
• In 2015, I waded into the controversial topic of what happens when flag burning meets the modern regulatory state.
• In 2016, I looked at how government has increased the cost of celebrating Independence Day.
• In 2017, I explained the difference between the statist vision of “positive liberty” and the libertarian vision of “negative liberty.”

Today, we’re going to commemorate a great speech by one of America’s best Presidents.

In 1926, Calvin Coolidge spoke on the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Here’s some of what he said.

When we come to examine the action of the Continental Congress in adopting the Declaration of Independence in the light of what was set out in that great document and in the light of succeeding events, we can not escape the conclusion that it had a much broader and deeper significance than a mere secession of territory and the establishment of a new nation. …It was not because it was proposed to establish a new nation, but because it was proposed to establish a nation on new principles, that July 4, 1776, has come to be regarded as one of the greatest days in history. …In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man — these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. …It was in the contemplation of these truths that the fathers made their declaration and adopted their Constitution. It was to establish a free government, which must not be permitted to degenerate into the unrestrained authority of a mere majority or the unbridled weight of a mere influential few. …These are our guaranties of liberty. As a result of these methods enterprise has been duly protected from confiscation, the people have been free from oppression.

If you have the time, click on the link and read the entire speech.  But if you don’t have time, I hope the passages I excerpted reveal Coolidge’s appreciation for the philosophy of American independence.

I also like how he links those principles to economics, which is nicely captured in the last sentence.

Sadly, the Supreme Court no longer protects our economic liberties (John Roberts providing the most recent example), but it was nice while it lasted.

Speaking of which, here’s a great conversation between James Buchanan and Walter Williams on the meaning and importance of the Constitution. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. They cover lots of additional material, including spending limits, tax reform, and free trade.

For what it’s worth, my favorite part of the conversation is about how markets are mutually beneficial, whereas government is a zero-sum, or negative-sum game.

Let’s close with a celebration of the great American tradition of civil disobedience against the state.

Sadly, with the likely exception of gun owners, we no longer seem to have the same ornery attitude as our ancestors. Though Charles Murray has a plan to recreate a culture of civil disobedience.

P.S. Here’s a first-hand account of what patriotism means.

My opinions on crime are very straightforward.

• Have very few laws, mostly at the state level, with the goal of protecting life, liberty, and property.
• Have strong constitutional and procedural protections for the rights of the accused.
• To alter the cost-benefit calculations of bad people, impose serious punishment on those convicted.

This set of principles explains my views on a wide range of issues, such as the War on Drugs, asset forfeiture, money laundering, search and seizure, and the death penalty.

But I sometimes come across an incident that challenges these principles.

Let’s look at a horrible story from Michigan about girls being genitally mutilated.

Dr. Jumana Nagarwala was arrested in April 2017 and accused of leading a criminal conspiracy that involved multiple doctors and resulted in the mutilation of nine girls over the course of twelve years. The practice, which is universally recognized as a gross violation of human rights, is traditional among the Dawoodi Bohra, the Muslim sect to which Nagarwala and his co-conspirators belong.

My visceral instinct is for some tit-for-tat justice. The so-called doctors should receive equivalent treatment, without the benefit of anesthesia.

Since that’s not an option, a very lengthy prison sentence could be the next-best alternative.

But something very unusual happened. The barbaric doctors had been charged by the federal government based on a federal law against genital mutilation, and a judge decided that the statute exceeded the proper powers of the federal government.

A federal judge dismissed charges Tuesday against several Michigan doctors accused of mutilating the genitals of numerous underage girls, ruling that the federal prohibition against the practice is unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman argued that the 22-year-old federal law prohibiting female genital mutilation (FGM), which went unused until last year, constitutes federal overreach. …the judge’s ruling entirely clears four defendants in the case, including three mothers who allegedly handed their underage daughters over to Nagarwala to be mutilated.

This is a quandary.

I want the “doctors” to be thrown under the jail, yet part of me is very happy that a federal judge actually acknowledges that the Constitution imposes some limits on federal power.

Too bad Judge Friedman wasn’t sitting in for Justice John Roberts when the Obamacare case was (wrongly) decided.

Anyhow, here’s what has since happened.

In response to the case, Michigan governor Rick Snyder signed new laws prohibiting the practice of FGM, but as those laws applied only to future violations, the defendants in this case were charged under the old federal statute. Twenty-three other states, however, do not have laws banning the practice, leading critics of the judge’s ruling to suggest that parents intent on mutilating their daughters for religious purposes will simply travel to states where they can do so legally.

I have a couple of concluding thoughts.

First, I imagine that all 50 states – even crazy California – will pass laws against this barbaric ritual. So there’s no reason to relax my strong support for federalism.

Second, I hope Michigan authorities figure out how to charge the so-called doctors under existing state laws against assault, kidnapping, and anything else that might work.

In conclusion, I’m not under the illusion that any system will deliver perfect justice. But I do think we would get the best-possible outcomes if we adhered to constitutional principles and restricted the size and scope of the federal government.

P.S. Let’s not forget that jury nullification also should exist as an additional bulwark against bad laws and abusive officials.

One of the interesting games in Washington is deciding who on the right (however defined) is a “Trumpie” and who is a “Reaganite.”

Here are a few indicators.

• If you claim to be for small government, but cheer Trump’s support of greater federal involvement in child care, you’re not a Reaganite.
• If you claim to be for small government, but supported Trump when he broke the spending caps, you’re not a Reaganite.
• If you claim to be for small government, but no longer care about entitlements because Trump opposes reform, you’re not a Reaganite.

But, given the huge gap in their views, trade is probably the biggest way of separating the Trumpies from the Reaganites.

And if you want a clear dividing line for Members of Congress, just see whether they support the “Reciprocal Trade Act” or the “Congressional Trade Authority Act.”

The former is sponsored by Congressman Sean Duffy of Wisconsin and would empower Trump to impose more taxes on trade.

Bryan Riley of the National Taxpayers Union is wisely skeptical.

…treating our trading partners as allies rather than adversaries has paid enormous dividends for Americans. Just since 1990, world tariffs fell by nearly two-thirds as U.S. exports more than doubled, even after adjusting for inflation. …The Reciprocal Trade Act would turn this successful approach to trade on its head. …proponents who endorse this approach often argue that tariff reciprocity is needed to as a lever to reduce foreign trade barriers. But the White House’s own case studies show this is untrue. …Trump wants to replace a successful post-World War II policy based on the understanding that trade is win-win with one that is likely to encourage foreign governments to retaliate against Americans. …History shows trade policy is more likely to succeed if it is based on the Golden Rule instead of on hostile eye-for-an eye reciprocity. It turns out that the United States benefits when we treat our trading partners the way we would like them to treat us. …Princeton University’s Robert Keohane described how countries benefit from this “sequential reciprocity”… The goal of the Trump administration’s trade policy should be to promote reciprocal trade, not reciprocal taxes.

Here’s a chart from Bryan’s study that shows how trade liberalization in recent decades has been very successful.

In an article for National Interest, Clark Packard also pours cold water on the Reciprocal Trade Act.

The United States Reciprocal Trade Act, which will soon be introduced by Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.), would expand the president’s already enormous unilateral authority to impose tariffs and other import restrictions. …the Reciprocal Trade Act would grant the president the authority to match the tariff applied to any given product by a trading partner. To use one of the administration’s favorite examples, the Europe Union applies a 10 percent tariff on imported automobiles, while the United States levies a 2.5 percent tariff on its imports. The Reciprocal Trade Act would allow the president unilaterally to raise the tariff to 10 percent on European cars as leverage for further negotiations.

He lists some of the reasons why the proposed law is bad policy.

The bill is enormously flawed and should be a nonstarter for myriad reasons. …violates U.S. commitments to the WTO’s Most-Favored Nation (MFN) principle of nondiscrimination. …The bill also would violate U.S. commitments under Article II of GATT. …the effect of the law would be that countries would retaliate against American exports and ensnare unrelated industries in a tit-for-tat. …The United States has been successful in getting other countries to lower tariffs and other trade barriers through negotiations. …the Reciprocal Trade Act would jeopardize this American-led system that has paid enormous dividends.

All of his points are accurate, though I don’t expect the president’s supporters would care about violating WTO obligations since they presumably would cheer if Trump pulled the U.S. out of the the agreement – even though it has been very beneficial for the United States.

Now let’s look at the Congressional Trade Authority Act, which would restrict rather than expand the ability of the executive branch to impose higher taxes on trade.

Adam Brandon of FreedomWorks explains the principles at stake.

…the Bicameral Congressional Trade Authority Act would ensure that all tariffs imposed by the executive branch in the name of national security must first be approved by Congress. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution establishes that Congress “shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises.” The framers, in their wisdom, made this the very first power they delegated specifically to the legislative branch of the United States. Tariffs are taxes, and they adversely impact American consumers. Such measures should be enacted only after thoughtful debate by the elected representatives most accountable to the people of the United States. They should not be handed down unilaterally from the White House. …it’s time for Congress to reclaim their enumerated Article I power over trade. …FreedomWorks agrees with Rep. Gallagher and Sen. Toomey on the need to respect our Constitution and ensure Congress has full control over its Article I authority.

The Wall Street Journal opines favorably about Senator Toomey’s legislation.

…some on Capitol Hill are trying again to rein in the President’s tariff powers. …the Pennsylvania Republican…Mr. Toomey’s bill would require Congress’s blessing. Once a tariff is proposed, lawmakers have 60 days to pass a privileged resolution—no Senate filibuster to block consideration—authorizing it. No approval, no tariff.This is a serious reassertion of the Article I trade powers that Congress has long shirked. Since the bill is retroactive, President Trump would have to convince Congress that his tariffs on steel and aluminum are necessary. If lawmakers didn’t agree, the tariffs would end. …But that’s not all. The Commerce Secretary is now responsible for declaring that an import endangers national security. This bill would give the task, sensibly, to the Defense Secretary.

I like what Senator Toomey is trying to achieve. And I like it, not only because I don’t want politicians interfering with trade, but also because I support the Constitution.

America’s Founders deliberately set up a system based on Separation of Powers because they understood that unilateral power was a recipe for government abuse.

Interestingly, many Trumpies also claim to support the Constitution. Indeed, they are some of the biggest critics of the “administrative state,” which developed as federal agencies began to exercise legislative powers.

Which gives me an opportunity to contribute something to this discussion. I’m a great admirer of the American Enterprise Institute’s Mark Perry, in part because of his very clever hypocrisy-exposing Venn Diagrams (taxation and incentives, the War on Drugs, minimum wage, Food and Drug Administration, and consenting adults).

So, in hopes of showing Trumpies the error of their ways, here’s my humble attempt to copy Mark.

P.S. Even though open trade is very beneficial for American prosperity, I would not want a future president to assert unilateral power to eliminate tariffs. Yes, I want better policy, but I also support the Constitution and the rule of law.

It’s not easy being a libertarian. Thanks to senseless and harmful government policies, you run the risk of being perpetually outraged.

• One day, you get angry because an innocent person is being harassed by the bureaucracy.
• The next day, you’re upset because insiders are using their political connections to get unearned wealth.
• The following day, your blood boils when you learn the government stole somebody’s property.

Well, we have some good news about that final example.

In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court has chipped away at the odious practice of civil asset forfeiture.

Professor Ilya Somin, from George Mason University’s Law School, explains the legal issues.

The decision is potentially a major victory for property rights and civil liberties. The key questions before the Court are whether the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment is “incorporated” against state governments and, if so, whether at least some state civil asset forfeitures violate the Clause. The justices answered both questions with a unanimous and emphatic “yes.” As a result, the ruling could help curb abusive asset forfeitures, which enable law enforcement agencies to seize property that they suspect might have been used in a crime – including in many cases where the owner has never been convicted of anything, or even charged. Abusive forfeitures are a a widespread problem that often victimizes innocent people and particularly harms the poor. …the Court…previously ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates nearly all of the rest of the Bill of Rights against the states, including the Excessive Bail and Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clauses of the very same amendment. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s majority opinion offers a good explanation of why incorporation of the Clause is easily justified under the Court’s precedents.

This morning, the Wall Street Journal opined favorably on the ruling.

Police and prosecutors around America have long used asset forfeiture as a cash cow, but a unanimous Supreme Court ruling Wednesday should make them think twice. The Bill of Rights keeps paying dividends even after 228 years. …Justices left and right agree. In her opinion for the Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg held that the safeguard on excessive fines, quoting earlier cases, is “fundamental to our scheme of ordered liberty” and “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.” …the Court’s ruling in Timbs v. Indiana puts states and cities on notice. Some police departments have set annual targets for asset seizures, and a limiting legal principle has been nowhere to be found. During oral argument, Indiana’s solicitor general said that if a driver in a Ferrari was going five miles over the speed limit, that could be grounds for police to take the car. …defendants trying to protect their property against unjust state seizure will now have the Constitution firmly on their side.

While this decision is good news, let’s not get too excited.

What we really need is for the Supreme Court to rule that the entire practice of civil asset forfeiture is unconstitutional.

Unlike criminal asset forfeiture, there’s no finding of illegal behavior in cases of civil asset forfeiture. Indeed, in many cases, the government steals the property of people who aren’t even charged with a crime!

That’s why it is so outrageous and immoral.

Here’s a short video on the topic from the Institute for Justice (which, incidentally, deserves credit for the victory at the Supreme Court).

P.S. It’s worth noting that the first two people to lead the Justice Department’s asset forfeiture division have repented their sins and say the racket should be ended. Too bad Trump is on the wrong side.

P.P.S. Given the human misery it has caused, we shouldn’t laugh about asset forfeiture, but this bit of humor is very entertaining.

While she’s mostly known for radical proposals such as confiscatory tax rates and the Green New Deal, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also made waves with recent comments about imposing “democracy” on the economy.

In a discussion last year at Ponoma College in California, I explained why majoritarianism is misguided.

For all intents and purposes, unchecked democracy gives 51 percent of the people a right to rape and pillage 49 percent of the people.

Thankfully, America’s Founders realized that approach was incompatible with individual liberty.

They drafted a Constitution that explicitly limited the power of politicians (and thus also limited the power of people who vote for politicians).

Why? Because they understood history.

Professor Victor Davis Hanson explains how they recognized the dangers of majoritarianism.

The half-millennia success of the stable Roman republican system inspired later French and British Enlightenment thinkers. Their abstract tripartite system of constitutional government stirred the Founding Fathers to concrete action. Americans originally were terrified of what 51 percent of the people in an unchecked democracy might do on any given day—and knew that ancient democracies had always become more not less radical and thus more unstable. For all the squabbles between Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Madison, they agreed that a republic, not a direct democracy, was a far safer and stable choice of governance. …We often think that a Bill of Rights was designed to protect Americans from monarchs and dictators. It certainly was. But the Founders were just as terrified of what that the majority of elected representatives without restraint might legally do on any given day to an individual citizen. …All consensual governments are prone to scary wild swings of mob-like emotion—and to demagogues who can almost rein in or goad the dêmos. But the Founders sought to make American government immune to Athenian-style craziness through a system of checks and balances that vented popular frenzies without a great deal of damage.

In a column for the Foundation for Economic Education, Professor Gary Galles explains the difference between liberty and democracy.

…far too little attention seems to be given to the differences between democracy—the process by which we select members of government—and liberty—the key to good government. …our Constitution and Bill of Rights…put some things beyond majority determination… Unfortunately, democracy…is entirely consistent with choices that destroy liberty…the growing reach of government makes our exercise of democracy an increasing threat to liberty, defending that liberty requires understanding the limits of democratic determination.

George Will, citing the work of Professor Randy Barnett, explains that the fight is – or should be – between statist majoritarians and libertarian constitutionalists.

Regarding jurisprudence, Democrats are merely results-oriented, interested in…expanding government’s power… Republicans…have grown lazily comfortable with rhetorical boilerplate in praise of “judicial restraint.” …all progressives are Hobbesians in that they say America is dedicated to a process — majoritarian decision-making that legitimates the government power it endorses. Not all Lockeans are libertarians, but all libertarians are Lockeans in that they say America is dedicated to a condition — liberty. …Lockeans favor rigorous judicial protection of certain individual rights — especially private property and freedom of contract — that define and protect the zone of sovereignty within which people are free to act as they please. Hobbesians say the American principle is the right of the majority to have its way. …Lockeans say the Constitution, properly construed and enforced by the judiciary, circumscribes the majoritarian principle by protecting all rights that are crucial to individual sovereignty. …Barnett says, yes, the Constitution — “the law that governs those who govern us” — is libertarian. And a Lockean president would nominate justices who would capaciously define and vigorously defend, against abuses by majoritarian government.

You don’t have to be a Randian to heartily endorse and embrace this sentiment (h/t: Libertarian Reddit).

The most cogent warning about majoritarianism comes from the great Thomas Sowell.

To emphasize the dangers of majoritarianism, I’ll close by simply citing Brazil in the past and Venezuela today.

P.S. Though I must admit that the Swiss are an example of how majoritarianism can lead to good outcomes.

P.P.S. I strongly encourage you to read what Walter Williams wrote on this topic.

Two days ago, I wrote about how the Constitution was designed, in large part, to protect Americans from majoritarianism.

The Supreme Court is doing a reasonably good job of protecting some of our liberties (or, in the Heller case, restoring our liberties), but I point out in this clip from a recent interview that the Justices have failed to protect our property rights.

But since I’m now a lawyer, let’s focus instead on what legal scholars have written on this issue.

The late Professor Bernard Siegan authored a great book, Economic Liberties and the Constitution. If you care about these issues, you should buy it.

In the meantime, here are some excerpts from an article he wrote for Chapman Law Review.

The original Constitution of 1787 granted limited powers to each of the three branches of government… The federal government was limited in power so that it could not deprive citizens of their privileges and immunities… The Constitution was passed by delegates who had lived under and were steeped in the common law. Most terms and provisions of the Constitution are of common law origin and cannot fully be understood without reference to the common law. Thus, although there were no specific protections for the right of property or economic activity or press and speech, the United States government was given no power in the Constitution to deprive people of these common law rights.

Siegan explains some of the thinking that motivated James Madison.

The most influential Framer of both the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights was James Madison, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention from Virginia… He spent considerable time preparing for the Convention by studying the writings of leading authorities on government, particularly the Scottish philosopher and historian David Hume, who advocated freedom for commerce as essential to the viability and progress of a nation. As a result of his…extensive review of literature on the subject of government, Madison concluded that for a nation to be politically and economically successful considerable limitation of government powers was required, enabling the productive, inventive, and competitive talents of the people to flourish. He believed that the welfare of a nation mandated the creation of a commercial republic that would depend on freedom of the markets and not on the authority of the state.

There’s also an excellent book, The Dirty Dozen, written by Robert Levy and William Mellor, which outlines twelve terrible Supreme Court decisions that expanded the power of government (including Wickard v. Filburn and Kelo v City of New London).

Here are some excerpts from remarks by Levy.

The Tenth Amendment says quite clearly that the federal government is authorized to exercise only certain enumerated powers, the ones that are listed there and that are specifically delegated to the national government. The Tenth Amendment goes on to say, if the power is not listed there, if it’s not enumerated and delegated to the national government, then it is reserved to the states or, depending on the provisions of state constitutions and state laws, to the people. …No matter how worthwhile the goal, no matter how much Congress thinks that it has identified a really important problem, and no matter how sure Congress is that it knows how to fix the problem, if there’s no constitutional authority to pursue it, then the federal government has to step aside and leave the matter to the states or private parties.

In other words, the Founders weren’t joking when they listed the enumerated powers.

They even included an amendment as part of the Bill of Rights to reinforce those limitations on the power of government.

Speaking of amendments, advocates of bigger government could have used that approach to expand the power of Washington. But, as Levy points out, they didn’t need to follow the rules because the Supreme Court decided to no longer protect economic liberty.

…the Supreme Court has accomplished through the back door what the states and the Congress could not have accomplished through the prescribed amendment process. Regrettably, I think, the modern court has lost its compass… Much of the court’s enduring mischief…started during the New Deal and continues today.

Last but not least, Professor Richard Epstein (my former debating partner) has a great book entitled The Classical Liberal Constitution. It also belongs in your library (and will help underscore the differences between classical liberalism and today’s statist version of liberalism).

Until then, here are excerpts from one of his articles.

…the Constitution…does offer broad and specific protections to private property through the Takings Clause (“nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation”^4×4. U.S. Const. amend. V. ) and through the Due Processes Clauses of the Fifth and the Fourteenth Amendments (providing that neither the federal government nor the states may deprive any person of “life, liberty or property, without due process of law”^5×5. Id.; id. amend. XIV. ). …a unified conceptual framework should apply to what are called economic and personal liberties, even if it were possible to articulate some hard-edged separation between them. The analytical origin of this position is that voluntary contracting, whether for the transfer of goods and services or the formation of long-term associations, works as well in the one domain as in the other.

Epstein points out that there was a spirited debate when the Constitution was drafted and adopted, but both sides in that debate would oppose the expansion of government power that largely began in the 1930s.

…there were many differences between the Federalists and Antifederalists, but anyone would be hard pressed to find a single point of contention that could be cashed out to support the hallmark legislation of the New Deal. …the Contracts Clause imposes limitations on how the state could regulate ot only existing contracts, but also those contracts that had not yet been made. And whatever doubts that existed were largely removed by the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, where the correct reading of the Privileges or Immunities, Due Process, and Equal Protection Clauses all place powerful limitation on the scope of state power to regulate economic and noneconomic matters alike. …neither the Federalists nor the Antifederalists in the ratification debates supported such massive federal schemes as the National Labor Relations Act.

Let’s close with this clever image someone posted on Facebook.

P.S. Here’s some satire about Obama and the Bill of Rights.

P.P.S. And here’s what Professor Epstein said about his interactions with Obama at the University of Chicago.

P.P.P.S. I image Levy/Mellor book would be re-titled The Dirty Thirteen if it was updated to include the horrific Obamacare decision.

For my annual Independence Day columns, I sometimes try to make serious points, such as last year when I shared the very wise words of Calvin Coolidge, who is probably America’s most-underappreciated president.

Or when I wrote about the proper meaning of patriotism, as I did in 2010 and 2014.

Other years, I celebrate July 4 with some humor, such as my sarcastic Declaration of Dependency in 2011.

Or some cartoons about Obamacare vs. American principles the following year.

For 2019, let’s mix seriousness and satire.

We’ll start with the former. John Stossel’s column for Reason explains what Americans should be celebrating.

We have reason to celebrate. The Fourth honors the founding of America. It’s the anniversary of the day in 1776 that the Declaration of Independence was approved. The Declaration was important. It didn’t say that America would be the best country because it would have the biggest military, toughest leaders, most government giveaways, or tightest borders. The great innovation that day in Philadelphia was the declaration that the United States would have a limited government, rooted in the idea that every individual has inalienable rights. …It was America’s emphasis on limited government—wanting to make sure no one in government would ever again wield power like that of the British king—that made our revolution the greatest and most lasting success of recent centuries. …France created revolutionary committees that murdered dissenters. Russia replaced its czar with a communist police state that confiscated farms, killing millions. …America happened—and continues to happen—spontaneously, when its leaders are smart enough to just stay out of our way. America will do best if we remember that the Declaration of Independence talks about limited government and reminds us that every individual has inalienable rights.

Amen.

Reminds me of what Reagan said.

One of the key takeaways is that American ideals are inspiring, but government policies often leave much to be desired.

Harry Stewart, one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen, has a great essay in the Wall Street Journal on patriotism even when your government is flawed.

On June 27, 1944, I graduated from Tuskegee Army Flying School, established in Alabama shortly before America’s entry into World War II to train young African-American men as Army combat pilots. …The train ride down South was eye-opening for a teenager who’d never traveled far from New York. When the train crossed the Mason-Dixon Line, the conductor came by and pointed at me: “Move to the colored car.” It was disconcerting, but I saw it as an unavoidable hurdle to earning my wings. I swallowed hard and kept going. …You weren’t just learning to fly; you were serving your country, and you were going to fight. …I flew 43 combat missions with the 332nd Fighter Group… Our commander was the legendary Benjamin O. Davis Jr., who had endured four years of the silent treatment from white cadets at West Point but nevertheless managed to graduate 35th out of a class of 276. …His convictions were encapsulated in his statement: “The privileges of being an American belong to those brave enough to fight for them.” …I am proud that I contributed to the cause. We called it winning the Double V, victory against totalitarianism abroad and institutional racism at home. July 4 is my birthday, but I celebrate my country’s birthday too. America was not perfect in the 1940s and is not perfect today, yet I fought for it then and would do so again.

There’s a lesson in those words for Colin Kaepernick.

Now let’s enjoy some satire, though combined with a serious message.

Bryan Riley of the National Taxpayers Union has a July 4th-themed column on Trump’s destructive trade taxes.

…the next round of tariffs symbolizes just how un-American this trade war has become. …on $300 billion in imports, would include tariffs on tea and fireworks. They might as well be considering a tax on bald eagles. …the 1773 Boston Tea Party was a response to England’s 3 pence per pound tariff on tea imported from China. As President John F. Kennedy observed, “When the people of Boston in 1773 threw cargoes of tea into the harbor, the American Revolution was in effect under way, symbolized by this revolution against a tariff–a tariff which meant taxation without representation.” …As we celebrate our country’s 243rd birthday, let’s also celebrate the American patriots who are following in the footsteps of our country’s founders by opposing costly new tariffs. …As we celebrate our country’s 243rd birthday, let’s also celebrate the American patriots who are following in the footsteps of our country’s founders by opposing costly new tariffs.

Reminds me of the clever AAF visual on how government makes it more expensive to celebrate today.

Last but not least, here’s an alien learning about the long-term consequences of America’s fight for independence, which began as a tax revolt.

Taxation without representation wasn’t very appealing, but the cartoon makes a very good point about the downside of taxation with representation.

Which is a good opportunity to remind everyone why America’s Founders were wise to create a republic rather than a majoritarian democracy.

Too bad the Supreme Court, most recently with Obamacare, has failed in its job to protect economic liberty.

I was delighted to learn in 2013 that an overwhelming majority of Americans would disobey if politicians passed laws to confiscate private firearms.

And we have firsthand evidence from Colorado and Connecticut that gun owners engage in widespread civil disobedience.

But people elsewhere in the world also have a bit of rebelliousness. Here are some excerpts from a column in Reason about what’s been happening in New Zealand.

New Zealand’s government—which also stepped up censorship and domestic surveillance after bloody attacks on two Christchurch mosques earlier this year—is running into stiff resistance to new gun rules from firearms owners who are slow to surrender now-prohibited weapons and will probably never turn them in. Officials should have seen it coming. …As of last week, only around 700 weapons had been turned over. There are an estimated 1.5 million guns—with an unknown number subject to the new prohibition on semiautomatic firearms—in the country overall. Traditionally relaxed in its approach to firearms regulation, and enjoying a low crime rate, New Zealand has no firearms registration rule. That means authorities have no easy way of knowing what guns are in circulation or who owns them. “These weapons are unlikely to be confiscated by police because they don’t know of their existence,” Philippa Yasbek of Gun Control NZ admitted. “These will become black-market weapons if their owners choose not to comply with the law and become criminals instead.”

Congrats to the Kiwis.

The spirit of civil disobedience exists throughout the Antipodes.

That gun owners would, in large numbers, defy restrictions should have been anticipated by anybody who…glanced across the Tasman Sea to Australia. “In Australia it is estimated that only about 20% of all banned self-loading rifles have been given up to the authorities,” wrote Franz Csaszar, professor of criminology at the University of Vienna, after Australia’s 1996 compensated confiscation of firearms following a mass murder in Port Arthur, Tasmania. Csaszar put the number of illegally retained arms in Australia at between two and five million. “Many members of the community still possess grey-market firearms because they did not surrender these during the 1996–97 gun buyback,” the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission conceded in a 2016 report. “The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission continues to conservatively estimate that there are more than 260,000 firearms in the illicit firearms market.”

Congrats to the Aussies.

For what it’s worth, the Australian government hasn’t undertaken a big effort to round up guns. And I also don’t think the New Zealand government will mount a big campaign. Maybe they’ve watched this Reason video?

I’ll close with examples of noncompliance in America.

The Old West desert town of Needles, California,…is gaining notoriety… Leaders have declared it a “sanctuary city” for people who believe California’s strict gun laws have encroached too much on their constitutional right to keep and bear arms. The City Council in the town of 5,000 that borders Arizona and is a few miles from the southern tip of Nevada last month unanimously declared Needles a “2nd Amendment Sanctuary City.” …This effort is part of a national trend of officials in more conservative areas resisting tougher state gun laws. In New Mexico, more than two dozen sheriffs in predominantly rural areas vowed to avoid enforcement, equipped with supportive “Second Amendment Sanctuaries” resolutions from county commissions. In Washington, sheriffs in a dozen counties said earlier this year that they won’t enforce the state’s sweeping new restrictions on semi-automatic rifles until the courts decide whether they are constitutional.

P.S. I also shared encouraging polling data on public attitudes about gun control in 2015.

P.P.S. And this polling data from cops in 2013 also gives me a reason to be optimistic.

P.P.P.S. Last but not least, don’t forget that jury nullification is another way for individual Americans to fight bad laws.

I wrote a three-part series (here, here, and here) about “jury nullification,” which is the notion that jurors can declare defendants not guilty if they think the underlying law is unjust or immoral.

We have an example of this happening in New Orleans, though it occurred even before a trial.

All New Orleans prosecutors had to do was convince six people that a waiter at a famed French Quarter restaurant was guilty of a felony marijuana charge. But as it turned out, there weren’t enough people willing to consider that possibility on Tuesday. Potential jurors who said they don’t think marijuana should be illegal helped scotch the planned trial of Antoine’s server Jabar Kensey before he could face the music. …Call it a sign of the times. Ad hoc Criminal District Court Judge Dennis Waldron halted the selection process after 20 of 25 potential jurors were dropped and no more jurors remained in the day’s pool. …The right of jurors to voice their objections to criminal laws stretches back centuries, according to Texas defense attorney Clay Conrad. He said the courts have upheld the power of jurors to “nullify” charges with acquittals, despite overwhelming evidence of a defendant’s guilt, if they object to the underlying law.

It’s also been happening in Georgia, as J.D. Tuccille explains for Reason.

On July 12, a jury in Laurens County, Georgia, found Bernard’s client, Javonnie Mondrea McCoy, “not guilty” of the manufacture of marijuana and of possession of drug-related objects, despite his open admission that he had, in fact, grown the much-demonized plant. That follows on a similar victory last year in the case of Antonio Willis, who was lured into selling the equivalent of a few joints by an undercover cop. In both cases, Bernard emphasized the humanity of the defendants, of their roles as fallible, but decent people who didn’t deserve to be ground up by the wheels of the penal system. …”Hey, what’s going on here?” she wants jurors to ask themselves. “Does it reflect my values?” What Bernard doesn’t do is explicitly ask jurors to “nullify” the laws under which her clients are charged. …Instead, she emphasizes the role of the juror, which she describes as a “powerful and awesome position.” She insists that the very idea of jurors implicitly contains the idea of nullification, and she tries to help them realize how empowered they are.

In a column for the Foundation for Economic Education, Brittany Hunter cites the same heroic Georgia lawyer and examines some broader implications.

Jury Nullification has deep roots in our American legal system and allows jurors to “nullify” a law if they believe it to be unjust. While it is protected under the United States Constitution, it is also explicitly protected under Georgia law as well. Under Article 1, Section 1, Paragraph XI of the Georgia State Constitution, it reads, “the jury shall be the judges of the law and the facts.” …At the heart of jury nullification rests the belief that individuals and their unique circumstances should be taken into account before one is sentenced under an arbitrary or unjust law. And given the state of our criminal justice system, this right is absolutely important. …jury nullification would go on to be used in several important cases in American history. It was used when jurors refused to convict those charged with violating the Fugitive Slave Act and it was also responsible for bringing justice to Vietnam War protesters in the case of United States v. Moylan. Jury nullification was also largely responsible for ending alcohol prohibition.

To conclude, Kirsten Tynan of the Fully Informed Jury Association opines on the issue and highlights America’s long tradition of liberty-minded jurors.

Each year on September 5, we celebrate Jury Rights Day as our signature day of education. Jury Rights Day commemorates the 1670 trial of William Penn, which helped lay a solid foundation for jurors’ right of conscience acquittal by jury nullification. We also celebrate Constitution Day on September 17. …Though conscientious acquittal has roots in civil liberties such as freedoms of religion, speech, and association, did you know that it is also closely tied, in the history of the United States, to economic liberty? …British colonists in America did not simply grumble and then capitulate by paying their taxes. Often they actively resisted by breaking laws in order to evade taxes. It was difficult for the Crown to secure convictions when resisters were judged by juries composed of their sympathetic and similarly oppressed neighbors—many willing to vote not guilty despite the law having been broken.

In an ideal world, of course, we wouldn’t need rogue jurors.

There would be very few laws, and they would be designed to protect life, liberty, and property. And cops and prosecutors would all be fair and honest.

Needless to say, we don’t live in that world.

And since I doubt that ideal scenario will ever materialize, I’m glad many Americans still have a rebellious streak.

So the next time you get called for jury duty, you know what to do if the government is persecuting someone for owning a gun, doing drugs, selling sex, gambling, or anything else that doesn’t involve an actual victim.

If all of us stop convicting people for victimless crimes, maybe politicians will jettison bad laws (yes, I’m fantasizing, but let me enjoy the moment).

Other than an occasional column about events in my home county of Fairfax, I’ve never written about public policy in Virginia.

This is because the Commonwealth has had a dull profile. It doesn’t have a track record of notably good policies, such as Florida and Texas, and it doesn’t have a track record of notably bad policies, such as Illinois or New Jersey.

But that’s changed now that Democrats have total control of government and are trying to restrict Second Amendment rights.

Here are excerpts from a report immediately after last November’s elections.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam on Wednesday said he will reintroduce gun control measures in the upcoming legislative sessions now that Democrats have taken control “…These are common-sense pieces of legislation,” he told CNN’s John Berman on “New Day.” “I will introduce those again in January. And I’m convinced, with the majority now in the House and the Senate, they’ll become law…”Northam and Democrats will now have an advantage in the assembly to pursue gun control measures that Republicans have pushed against and blocked. …A ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and reinstating Virginia’s one-handgun-a-month law were among eight policy proposals Northam introduced ahead of the session.

From a policy perspective, Northam and his allies are misguided.

In a tweet,Stephen Gutowski debunks some of the Governor’s demagoguery.

And the invaluable John Lott touches on another error in his Townhall column,

Democrats, who just took control of the Virginia state legislature, are about to pass a law that will dramatically limit the ability of people with concealed handgun permits from other states to carry in Virginia. …Currently, Virginia recognizes concealed handgun permits issued by all other states. Out-of-state permit holders can carry in Virginia as long as they follow local laws and carry photo identification. …If state Democrats and Henning get their way, criminals will only need to look for an out of state license plates to know who to attack. …There’s no good reason not to issue permits much more generously. Permit holders are extremely law-abiding… Police rarely commit crimes… But permit holders are even more law-abiding, facing a conviction rate that is just one-tenth as often. …there is a reason that over 86% of police chiefs and sheriffs support national reciprocity. And over 90 percent of street officers support concealed handgun laws. These are the people who see first-hand how reciprocity and concealed carry works. Overwhelmingly academic research finds that letting people carry concealed handguns reduces crime.

But this isn’t just an issue of bad policy (I strongly recommend this column if you want to learn more about the senselessness of proposals to impose gun control).

It’s also an example of how ordinary citizens can – and should – engage in civil disobedience.

The Wall Street Journal recently opined on how counties are voting to become sanctuaries for the Second Amendment.

Eighty-six of Virginia’s 95 counties have passed…sanctuary measures opposing restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms. They suggest that the counties might not enforce new state laws limiting gun rights. …Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam has made gun control a priority… Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw would make it a felony to sell, manufacture, purchase or possess so-called assault weapons and large-capacity magazines. …one state representative wants to call in the National Guard to enforce gun laws, and another has introduced a bill that requires firing police officers who don’t enforce a gun statute. …But the sanctuary movement has a point about the Constitution. The Supreme Court confirmed in its landmark Heller ruling that individuals have the right to bear arms, but politicians have often ignored it. …Sanctuary counties that decline to enforce Virginia laws are endorsing lawlessness. But it is no less lawless when the courts or politicians ignore Supreme Court decisions.

And the Washington Examiner reports on protests from citizens across the state.

Some 100,000 Virginia gun owners who have rallied at county and town meetings for “gun sanctuaries”…the Virginia Citizens Defense League, which is leading the gun sanctuary movement…issued an “alert” to supporters to start lobbying lawmakers in Richmond against gun control. He said that the new anti-gun laws from Democrats are “pouring in like a waterfall.” …Van Cleave’s group and another organization, Gun Owners of America, have helped to spark a pro-gun movement in Virginia that did not exist before Democrats swept the November 2019 elections. In the two months since, they led the sanctuary movement that has won approval in 94% of the state. …“Virginia had been a very free state for a long time. This is where freedom started…people are looking at Virginia, saying our freedom started here and … we’ll be damned if it ends here,” he added.

Indeed, there’s a big protest planned in Richmond for January 20.

And the Governor is quite nervous, as reported by NPR.

Fearing potential violence, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam is declaring a state of emergency and is banning firearms and other weapons on the Capitol grounds in Richmond ahead of a gun rights demonstration… The event, hosted by Virginia Citizens Defense League, is expected to draw thousands of armed demonstrators, some from out of state. …On a Facebook page organizing the gun rights demonstration hosted by the Virginia Citizens Defense League, several commenters expressed frustration at Northam’s move to restrict guns from the Capitol grounds. One wrote, “This is simply a move to infringe on not only our 2nd Amendment rights but our 1st Amendment rights as well.”

By the way, there are sanctuary movements and other forms of civil disobedience all across the nation.

I’ve already written about such efforts in Colorado and Connecticut, and the Wall Street Journal reports on what’s now happening in New Mexico and Illinois.

…in New Mexico, 30 of 33 county sheriffs have signed a letter pledging to not help enforce several gun-control measures supported by Democrats in Santa Fe, according to the state’s sheriff association. The sheriffs, who are elected, say they are heeding the wishes of voters in the counties they serve. More than two dozen counties in the state have enacted “sanctuary” resolutions backing the sheriffs and affirming that no tax dollars in their jurisdictions should go to enforcing the proposed laws. …Elsewhere, about 60 counties in Illinois have approved—some by ballot measures—pro-Second Amendment resolutions, according to the Illinois State Rifle Association. …More than half of Washington’s sheriffs have denounced a gun-control package…as an unconstitutional and unenforceable step toward banning semiautomatic weapons. …In 2013, Colorado sheriffs joined a lawsuit in protest of expanded background checks and restrictions on higher-capacity ammunition magazines… Colorado sheriffs have very rarely charged anyone with violations, according to Dave Kopel, an attorney and scholar who represented the plaintiffs.

The article cites a law professor who explains that there is a downside to civil disobedience.

Norman Williams, a Willamette University law professor…drew a distinction between prosecutorial discretion and a categorical refusal to enforce a law. The latter undermines the rule of law, he said.

That’s a very fair point. But I also agree with the Wall Street Journal‘s argument that it is also “lawless when the courts or politicians ignore Supreme Court decisions.”

And that’s a perfect description of the actions of Northam and the rest of the anti-gun crowd.

Let’s close with a map showing the widespread resistance to the Virginia Governor’s anti-Second Amendment efforts.

Hopefully, more green has been added to this map over the past two weeks (though keep in mind that a big chunk of the state’s population lives in the handful of localities – Richmond, Northern Virginia, etc – that have not joined the resistance).

P.S. As noted above, civil disobedience is not the ideal way to deal with bad government policy. But when laws are immoral, despicable, and/or unconstitutional (everything from wretched Jim Crow laws to predatory traffic cameras), then I fully understand why ordinary citizens choose not to comply.

P.P.S. On a related note, citizens can also resist bad law by engaging in “jury nullification.”

In this interview from last March, I groused that the Supreme Court – largely thanks to statist Justices appointed by one of America’s worst presidents – basically decided, starting in the 1930s, that it would no longer be bound by the Constitution’s provisions that protect economic liberty.

I’m not a lawyer, much less an expert on the Constitution, but I know how to read.

The Constitution very clearly is a document to constrain rather than enable government. It was designed to produce what I’ve referred to as Madisonian constitutionalism.

When Justices ignore their responsibility to protect our rights, however, they’re basically acting like this satirical image of President Obama.

Let’s look at two very tragic legal cases from that era.

Professor John McGinnis, writing for Law & Liberty, discusses the wretched Supreme Court case that undermined the Constitution’s Contract Clause.

…the Contract Clause…was the most litigated provision of the Federal Constitution in the 19th century, but today it has become a shadow of its former self because the Court has abandoned its original meaning. …The Contract Clause provides: “No State shall… pass any… Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts.” …in The Federalist, Madison argued that the Clause was a “bulwark in favor of… private rights.” …It is designed to protect an important aspect of the rule of law: a prohibition on the government changing specific plans that autonomous individuals have made. …For the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Supreme Court was relatively faithful in interpreting the Clause. In Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell, however, the Court departed from its role as a faithful agent of the Constitution. …influenced by the Depression and the growing discontent with the jurisprudence of substantive due process with which it confused the clear command of the Contract Clause, the Court upheld the law. It is true that times were hard, but as Justice George Sutherland’s dissent noted, legislation protecting debtors against creditors is passed precisely at such times, and yet such legislation was exactly the kind of evil which the Clause was designed to prohibit. The case is striking as an example of one of the most express rejections of originalism. Chief Justice Hughes stated explicitly that the Court was not bound by the original understanding of the Clause.

Writing for FEE, Professors Antony Davies and James Harrigan explain the terrible 1942 decision by the Supreme Court to remove any meaningful restriction on the power of the central government.

They start by pointing out that the 18th Amendment (imposing prohibition) was an example of how to expand the power of government in the proper way.

The Constitution creates a government of enumerated powers, which means the federal government is only authorized to do things that are specifically listed in the Constitution. And that list is relatively short. The list appears in Article One, Section Eight and enumerates the proper objects of congressional legislation.  …Consider the United States’ ill-advised flirtation with Prohibition—which was enacted almost exactly 100 years ago. Nowhere in the Article One, Section Eight powers does one see the authority to “ban the manufacture, transport, or sales of alcohol within the United States.” When Americans decided that they wanted a coast-to-coast ban on alcohol, they amended the Constitution to give the federal government this authority. Fourteen dry years later, Americans came to their senses and revoked this authority by amending the Constitution again.

Alcohol prohibition was a mistake, of course, just like today’s drug prohibition, and the American people went through the proper process of adopting the 21st Amendment (to repeal the 18th Amendment).

Davies and Harrigan then explain that it was about that time that the Supreme Court decided that it would no longer uphold the Constitution’s restrictions on the powers of the central government.

As of 1933, when the 21st Amendment was ratified, Americans still had a constitutionally limited federal government and what Justice Louis Brandeis famously called “laboratories of democracy” in the states. …But who ended up being tasked with deciding what Article One, Section Eight actually meant? Herein lies the wrinkle that enables all manner of constitutional mischief in the United States. The institution that ended up deciding what the federal government is empowered to do is itself a branch of the federal government. And it should come as no surprise that when push comes to shove, the Supreme Court routinely finds in favor of empowering the federal government.

One of the most horrifying examples of judicial failure occurred in 1942.

In 1942, the Supreme Court decided a case, Wickard v. Filburn, in which farmer Roscoe Filburn ran afoul of a federal law that limited how much wheat he was allowed to grow. …A careful reader might, and should, ask where the federal government’s right to legislate the wheat market is to be found—because the word “wheat” is nowhere to be found in the Constitution. …The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 put an upper limit on how much wheat farmers were allowed to grow, which would serve to keep prices high by limiting supply. Roscoe Filburn had grown 12 more acres of wheat than the law allowed. But not only did he not sell the excess wheat outside of his home state, but he also didn’t sell it at all. He used the wheat from those 12 acres to feed his cattle. …yet the Supreme Court found (unanimously) that because Congress had the authority to regulate interstate commerce, Congress also had the authority to prohibit Filburn from growing those 12 acres of wheat for his own use. …Filburn’s non-commercial activity was, according to the Supreme Court, interstate commerce. …Filburn’s non-commercial activity was, according to the Supreme Court, interstate commerce.

And here’s the result.

A century ago, we amended the Constitution when we wanted the federal government to exercise a new authority—that of banning alcohol. Today, we allow Congress to exercise almost any authority it likes. …We have progressed so far down the path of reinterpreting the Constitution as a document that empowers government, rather than one that limits it… The sad result has been a government nearly limitless in its power.

By the way, the Obamacare case may be as odious as Wickard v. Filburn since it marked another unfortunate expansion of Washington’s ability to control our lives, in violation of the clear language in Article 1, Section 8.

Though I don’t want to be too glum. The good news is that the Supreme Court occasionally does defend economic liberty, as the Wall Street Journal recently opined.

One goal of the U.S. Constitution was to form a union that allowed interstate commerce unencumbered by state protectionism. The Supreme Court reinforced that principle on Wednesday by striking down a two-year residency requirement to get a liquor license in Tennessee. …a business lobby known as Tennessee Wine and Spirits Retailers Association argued that the 21st Amendment that repealed Prohibition also gave the states broad authority to regulate alcohol. The association knows that if people can move to a state and open up liquor stores, it means more potential competition for those who already have licenses. The law is commercial protectionism and thus violates the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, the High Court ruled in Tennessee Wine and Spirits Retailers Assn. v. Thomas. “Because Tennessee’s 2-year residency requirement for retail license applicants blatantly favors the State’s residents and has little relationship to public health and safety, it is unconstitutional,” wrote Justice Samuel Alito for a 7-2 majority… the 21st Amendment doesn’t override the rest of the Constitution’s principles. As recently as 2005 (Granholm v. Heald), the Court ruled that New York state couldn’t discriminate against out-of-state wineries.

Some judges resent any protections against government power.

In an article for Reason, Damon Root properly castigates a judge for objecting to the economic liberties guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.

Does the U.S. Constitution protect economic liberty, such as the right to work in an occupation of one’s choosing free from unreasonable government regulation? Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice David Wecht thinks not. …in Ladd v. Real Estate Commission of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Wecht faulted his colleagues in the majority for their “judicial intrusion into the realm of legislative value judgments” after that court allowed a legal challenge to proceed against a state occupational licensing scheme. “I cannot endorse a constitutional standard that encourages courts,” he declared, “to second-guess the wisdom, need, or appropriateness” of duly enacted economic regulations. …”For many years, and under the pretext of protecting ‘economic liberty’ and ‘freedom of contract,’ the Supreme Court routinely struck down laws that a majority of the Court deemed unwise or improvident,” Wecht wrote of Lochner and several related cases. …I would encourage Justice Wecht to read some more legal history. …Rep. John Bingham (R–Ohio)…served as the principal author of Section One of the 14th Amendment… As Bingham told the House of Representatives, “the provisions of the Constitution guaranteeing rights, privileges, and immunities” includes “the constitutional liberty…to work in an honest calling and contribute by your toil in some sort to the support of yourself, to the support of your fellow men, and to be secure in the enjoyment of the fruits of your toil.” …even those who opposed the passage of the 14th Amendment agreed that it was designed to protect economic liberty from overreaching state regulation… The “right to contract” was of course later secured by the Supreme Court in Lochner.

Let’s close by detouring into the world of fantasy and contemplating how we should amend the Constitution today?

Rory Magraf lists five ideas in a piece for the Foundation for Economic Education, one of which I find especially tempting.

…the conversation always gets the cerebral juices flowing for legal enthusiasts; the idea of amending the US Constitution, something done only twenty-seven times in history, is about as close as one will get to actually sitting among the Founders in Philadelphia. With that in mind, here are some ideas.

The Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.

In short, abolish the income tax. This is usually a crowd-pleaser among libertarians and probably a handful of Republicans during an election year, but it is also a bit of a challenge, on the same level as chasing the moon. Still, it would be worthwhile to have the conversation.

Since I’m definitely not a fan of the income tax, I certainly endorse this notion.

However, I think we would need much stronger language. The key 1895 case that struck down the income tax was decided by a the narrow margin of 5-4, and that was back when Justices presumably cared more about the Constitution.

I fear that a similar case today would not lead to the right result (which is one of the reasons I’m skeptical of a national sales tax).

In any event, the federal government’s broad power to tax does not translate into a broad power to spend. At least if we care about the Constitution.

And that means much of the federal government is (or, to be more precise, should be) unconsitutional.

P.S. Here’s some of what Thomas Sowell wrote about Wickard v Filburn.

P.P.S. Here’s some of what Walter Williams wrote about the Constitution’s limits of Washington.

P.P.P.S. If you want to read more, the Constitution was designed to protect against majoritarianism and to ensure “negative liberty.”

P.P.P.P.S. Readers may also be interested in this discussion of whether libertarians should prefer Hamilton or Jefferson.

Some of my right-wing friends complain about “judicial activism,” which seems to mean that they want courts to defer to other branches of government.

Since I’m opposed to majoritarianism and because I want courts to defend and protect all parts of the Constitution, I put together this visual to illustrate why I think they’ve picked the wrong goal.

This handful of examples is designed to make clear that “activism” is sometimes appropriate.

But not always, which is why constitutionalism should be the right goal.

In a column for Reason, Damon Root gives a good example of what this means.

In 1938 the Supreme Court concocted a bifurcated approach to judicial review that treats some constitutional rights as more equal than others. If a law or regulation infringes on a right that the Court has deemed fundamental (such as freedom of speech or the right to vote), the Court said in United States v. Carolene Products Co., the judiciary should presume that law or regulation to be unconstitutional and subject it to “more exacting judicial scrutiny.” By contrast, in cases dealing with “regulatory legislation affecting ordinary commercial transactions,” Carolene Products stated, “the existence of facts supporting the legislative judgment is to be presumed.” In other words, judges are supposed to tip the scales in favor of lawmakers when economic liberty might be at stake. Now known as the rational-basis test, this rubber stamp approach has led to some truly dreadful judgments. …the rational-basis standard…runs counter to the text and history of the 14th Amendment, which was written, ratified, and originally understood to protect (among other rights) the right to economic liberty. In the words of Rep. John Bingham (R), the Ohio congressman who served as the principal author of Section One of the 14th Amendment in 1866, “the provisions of the Constitution guaranteeing rights, privileges, and immunities” includes “the constitutional liberty…to work in an honest calling and contribute by your toil in some sort to the support of yourself, to the support of your fellow men, and to be secure in the enjoyment of the fruits of your toil.”

Sounds like United States v. Carolene Products Co. ranks up there with Wickard v. Filburn as one of the Supreme Court’s worst decisions.

George Will shares some thoughts on the proper role of the judiciary in his Washington Post column.

For every American, a courtroom should be a level playing field, with the law blind to the “identity, power, and resources of the litigants.” This is not, however, the reality when an individual challenges a statute’s constitutionality. The tilted field favors the government — meaning legislative majorities — because federal jurisprudence invented, and…states have reflexively adopted, the presumption of constitutionality. …In Federalist No. 78, Alexander Hamilton wrote that “the courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature, in order, among other things, to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority.” However, the presumption of statutory constitutionality has this practical consequence: Although the members of all three branches of government swear constitutional oaths, legislatures enjoy practical primacy. …Clark Neily notes that between 1954 and 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated 0.65 percent of the laws Congress passed (103 of 15,817), 0.5 percent of federal regulations and less than 0.05 percent of state laws. Those who praise such judicial passivity must implausibly assume, as Neily says, that government “hits the constitutional strike zone” at least 99.5 percent of the time. How likely is this? Judicial passivity has been encouraged by decades of reflexive conservative denunciations of “judicial activism.” These denunciations have been paired with celebrations of “judicial deference” to legislative majoritarianism.

Mr. Will has made a strong argument that we could use a bit more “activism” and a bit less “deference.” Properly defined, of course.

Properly defined, of course. Looking at the image to the right, I want an activist judiciary when the tree is outside the fence and a deferential judiciary when the tree is inside the fence.

And that doesn’t necessarily mean libertarian policy.

For instance, the Constitution does include a postal service as one of the enumerated powers. That doesn’t mean the federal government is obliged to set up post offices, but they certainly have that right.

And, thanks to the unfortunate mistake of the 16th Amendment, our wretched internal revenue code passes constitutional muster (though having the authority to tax is not the same as the authority to spend).

P.S. You won’t be surprised to learn that E.J. Dionne is against the right kind of judicial activism.

P.P.S. Several people have messaged me over the years to ask about abortion and the Constitution. That’s not my area of expertise, but I’ll simply observe that it won’t make much difference if Roe vs. Wade is overturned. All that would happen is that legislatures would be in charge and many states would allow abortion on demand.

P.P.P.S. I also get asked about the advisability of a balanced budget amendment. That might be better than nothing, but a spending cap provision (similar to what exists in Switzerland, Hong Kong, and Colorado) would be far preferable.

A pure democracy, where 51 percent of the people have the right to do anything they want, is not a desirable form of government. It means tyranny of the majority.

That’s why America’s Founding Fathers instead created a constitutional republic, not only because they wanted to limit the power of the central government but also because they wanted certain rights to be inalienable – i.e., guaranteed and protected even if 99 percent of the population feel otherwise.

Some pundits and some lawmakers in Washington either don’t understand this part of American history or they want to pretend it doesn’t exist.

Fortunately, Senator Lee of Utah is not one of those people, as illustrated by this recent tweet.

This elementary observation rubbed some people the wrong way.

Indeed, it even generated a hostile article by Nathaniel Zelinsky in the Bulwark, an anti-Trump site operated by former Republicans.

This message fits a growing and disturbing trend. Among the conservative intelligentsia, especially in certain legal circles, it has become stylish to view self-governance as nothing more than a means to a very particular set of ends. And should “conservative” policies lose out in the democratic process, then liberal democracy itself should go. …Among Federalist Society members, a group once defined by a commitment to judicial restraint to protect democracy, one today hears about “active judging”—the notion that life-tenured jurists shouldn’t hesitate to strike down popularly enacted legislation. …these tendencies share a common endpoint: Upset the delicate bargain of American democracy and impose a narrow set of preferences on the rest of us. And it’s exactly this vein of illiberalism that Senator Lee tapped into. …Yes, the Founders crafted a constitutional structure that prevents the majority from easily imposing itself on a minority and places some hard limits on the government’s powers. But Senator Lee’s attack on “rank democracy”…leaves little room for…collective self-government.

At the risk of understatement, Mr. Zelinsky’s attack on Senator Lee is completely incoherent.

The Utah Senator was celebrating the “classical liberalism” of America’s founding principles. Senator Lee was extolling a system that protects individual rights.

That’s the opposite of “illiberalism.”

To be sure, there are some folks on the right who don’t embrace those values. But Senator Lee isn’t one of them.

This isn’t a new controversy, by the way. Writing last year for the U.K.-based Guardian, Quinn Slobodian accused “neoliberals” of favoring economic freedom over democracy (in Europe, they often use “neoliberal” as a term for libertarians).

The ideal world described by these indexes is one where property rights and security of contract are the highest values, inflation is the chief enemy of liberty, capital flight is a human right and democratic elections may work actively against the maintenance of economic freedom. …The definition of freedom they used meant that democracy was a moot point, monetary stability was paramount and any expansion of social services would lead to a fall in the rankings. Taxation was theft, pure and simple, and austerity was the only path to the top. …Pinochet, Thatcher and Reagan may be dead. But economic freedom indexes carry the neoliberal banner by deeming the goals of social justice forever illegitimate…the indexes help perpetuate the idea that economics must be protected from the excesses of politics – to the point that an authoritarian government that protects free markets is preferable to a democratic one that redesigns them.

Unlike the Zelinsky piece, Slobodian’s column is actually coherent.

He wants untrammeled majoritarianism, at least when he thinks it will result in bigger government.

And he’s correct that classical liberals reject that approach.

But we have good reasons for that skepticism. Writing earlier this year for the Foundation for Economic Education, Professor Gary Galles explained why it’s better to rely on “market democracy” rather than “political democracy.”

In a political democracy, a majority can also force its preferences on others in any issue. That is why our founders adopted constraints on majority abuse, such as limited, delegated powers and the Bill of Rights. However, those constraints have largely been undermined. In contrast to political democracy, free-market capitalism, which reflects democratic self-government, represents a far better ideal. Its system of exclusively voluntary cooperation based on self-ownership requires that property rights be respected; no majority can violate owners’ rights. …a superior form of democracy is to remove virtually all decisions and policies that we need not share in common (almost all of them, beyond the mutual protection of our property rights) from government dictation, even if they are “democratic,” and let people exercise self-government through their own voluntary arrangements, protected by their inalienable rights.

Amen. Professor Galles is correct.

Pure democracy is simply another way of saying untrammeled majoritarianism.

And that system of government is a threat the rights of minorities – whether you’re talking about religious minorities, ethnic minorities, sexual minorities, political minorities, or any other subset of the population that may be unpopular at some point with mass opinion.

P.S. Here’s an amusing Michael Ramirez cartoon about Obama and the Constitution.

P.P.S. On the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Calvin Coolidge correctly summarized the meaning of the American experiment.

P.P.P.S. If you want a horrifying example of majoritarianism in action, see Venezuela.

P.P.P.P.S. To be fair, Switzerland is a very successful example of a nation based not only on majoritarianism, but also direct democracy (my two cents is that the nation’s decentralization is the real reason for its success).

The good thing about being a libertarian is that real-world events repeatedly demonstrate that your skepticism of big government is fully justified.

• Nations that adopt dirigiste policies don’t do well.
• States that adopt dirigiste policies don’t do well.
• Localities that adopt dirigiste policies don’t do well.

The bad thing about being a libertarian is that there are very few governments that even partially follow laissez-faire policies.

• In Asia, we have Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
• In Africa, we have Botswana.
• In Europe, we have Switzerland.
• In Latin America, we have Chile.

Moreover, there’s always a risk that those few governments with reasonably good policy will veer in the wrong direction.

I worry that’s happening in Hong Kong, and I fear it may happen today in Chile if voters make the wrong choice in a national referendum.

In a column for Quillette, Axel Kaiser from Chile’s Adolfo Ibaniez University analyzes what is happening.

In an extraordinary development, Chileans are deciding whether they want to create an entirely new constitution from scratch or preserve the existing one. …Chileans will also vote on whether the new constitution will be drafted by a mixed constitutional convention of politicians and elected representatives from the citizenry, or a constitutional assembly composed entirely of citizens. In either case, decisions by the body would require a two-thirds majority, and its deliberations must be completed within a year. …the new process portends a period of political instability, and the specter of open-ended conflicts and stand-offs between different branches of government. …To many outside Chile, it may seem strange that what has been arguably the most stable and prosperous country in Latin America would circumvent its institutions in this way… But in fact, the creation of an entirely new constitutional order has long been an ambition of the Chilean Left. …Revolutionary efforts to upend existing constitutional schemes have been a common feature in Latin America since the 19th century. …The idea that a new constitution will provide Chile with an instant solution…various forms of social conflict has become an attractive delusion. Yet the more likely scenario is that it will simply legally encode the unrealistic ideological demands that brought Chile to this point in the first place. ……many voters seem…swayed by extravagant promises of the future benefits they will enjoy under a new (and as yet undrafted) constitution. …56 percent of Chileans believe that a new constitution would lead to higher pensions, better education, and superior health care, among a long list of other improvements.

And he also explains why voters should be big fans of the current constitution.

At least if they care about good results, especially for those with lower incomes.

Under the period covered by the current constitution, inflation—which had peaked at over 500 percent in 1973—fell below five percent by the 2000s. Between 1980 and 2015, per-capita income in Chile quadrupled to $23,000—the highest growth rate in Latin America. More importantly, life expectancy rose from 69 to 79, and levels of housing overcrowding fell to one-quarter of its pre-1980 levels. The middle class, as that category is defined by the World Bank, grew from 24 percent of the population in 1990 to 64 percent in 2015. Extreme poverty fell from 34 percent to less than three percent. Between 1990 and 2015, the income of the richest 10th of the population grew a total of 30 percent, while the income of the poorest 10th saw an increase of 145 percent. The Gini index, a widely used statistic that measures income inequality, fell from 52 in 1990 to about 48 in 2015. Chile also held the highest position among Latin American nations in the 2019 UN Human Development Index.

Mary Anastasia O’Grady, in her Wall Street Journal column, is concerned that Chileans may be poised to make a big mistake.

Chile is on the cusp of collective political and economic suicide… On Oct. 25 Chileans will vote on whether the country needs a new constitution. Polls indicate that the “yes” vote will prevail even as the process of rewriting the highest law in the land is shaping up to be a disaster.A new constitution is likely to put at risk the model of democratic capitalism that brought Chilean poverty to below 10% in 2018, from nearly 70% in 1990. Chile also had the highest social mobility in a 2018 Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development study of 16 member countries. …Many Chileans seem to believe that a new constitution will make things right, à la Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela circa early 2000s. …Referendum backers say it is a “democratic” process. It is certainly majoritarian. But Chileans are bound to be disappointed if higher living standards and greater opportunity are the goal. The nation will be lucky if it finishes the exercise on par with the impoverished Argentine welfare state. …expect a document that reads like a litany of unattainable aspirations.

Some people favor majoritarianism, of course, especially if the result is a new set of “positive rights” to other people’s money.

In a column for the New York Times, Professor Michael Albertus hopes a new constitution will incorporate statist economic policy.

Chileans will vote to reject or approve the start of creating a new constitution. The citizens of more countries should do the same. The country’s current Constitution…has protected conservative interests and the military and has suppressed political dissent for 40 years. …The vote to convene a constitutional assembly in Chile could lead to a new document that brings the leadership closer to the people… It could also enshrine greater rights for labor unions, establish health care and education as fundamental rights… Most of Chile’s protesters and their supporters are largely motivated by bread and butter issues like higher pay, gender equity, improved health care access and quality medical care, pension reform, more rights for Indigenous peoples, access to affordable public transportation and free public education. …Protesters view a new constitution as key to delivering on these demands.

So why might Chileans be willing to gamble with their nation’s prosperity?

Early this year, Axel Kaiser offered some insight in a column in the Wall Street Journal.

He blames a left-leaning former government for creating economic malaise.

The economic pain started with the antimarket reforms of the previous government under Socialist President Michelle Bachelet, from 2014-18. Ms. Bachelet increased corporate taxes by 30%; signed a law banning the replacement of workers on strike, thereby dramatically increasing the costs of labor; increased public spending at three times the economic growth rate; and unleashed armies of regulatory bureaucrats on the private sector. Capital investment fell in each year of her term. Such a consistent reduction in investment hasn’t happened since data was first collected, in the 1960s. Economic growth collapsed from an annual average of 5.3% under the previous government of Mr. Piñera (2010-14) to 1.7% under Ms. Bachelet. Real wage growth took a 50% hit.

By the way, I take no pleasure in having predicted that Ms. Bachelet’s tenure would yield bad results.

But let’s not focus on her mistakes.

Indeed, Mr. Kaiser thinks her bad policies (and the anemic Bush/Macri/Sarkozy-type approach of the current government) are largely a reflection of a bigger problem.

The policies result from a profoundly false narrative Chilean elites tell themselves about the country. Over the past 20 years, intellectuals, media personalities, business leaders, politicians and celebrities in this Latin American nation have marketed the myth that Chile is an extreme case of injustice and abuse. It began at the universities, where progressive ideologues spread the idea that there was nothing to feel proud about when it came to Chile’s social and economic record. …Ms. Bachelet’s second term and her social justice-driven agenda were the inevitable result. …The free market didn’t fail Chile… The central problem is that a large proportion of the elites who run key institutions—especially the media, the National Congress and the judiciary—no longer believe in the principles that made the country successful. The result is a full-blown economic and political crisis. Other nations should take note: This is what elite self-hatred can do for you.

I wonder if Alex is referring to the United States when warning other nations about the danger of “elite self-hatred.”

It’s certainly true that many elites in America are quite disdainful of the nation’s economic system. Which has always mystified me since that system enabled their success – or the success of their parents, which allows them to lead very comfortable (albeit guilt-ridden) lives.

More important, it enabled ever-higher living standards for ordinary people, which should please folks on the left, at least if we believe their rhetoric (though I fear many of them are more motivated by hostility to the rich rather than love for the poor).

But let’s not digress. I want to close by noting that poor people have been the biggest winners from Chile’s free-market reforms.

This tweet from Professor Daniel Lacalle is a perfect example. It shows how poverty has plummeted, regardless of which measure is used.

The bottom line is that lower-income people have enjoyed the biggest income gains. And that bit of data is especially impressive given how fast income has grown for the entire country.

P.S. I’ve already written that the most important referendum for 2020 is the upcoming vote whether to retain the Illinois flat tax. Perhaps I should have listed today’s vote in Chile?

When I write about gun control, it’s normally to make wonky points about how gun ownership reduces crime by changing the cost-benefit analysis of potential bad guys.

Today, in honor of Bill of Rights Day, let’s change the focus and celebrate the ratification of the 2nd Amendment. It was on this day, back in 1791, that the right to keep and bear arms was added to the Constitution.

To celebrate that freedom, here are some wise observations by some of America’s Founders. We’ll start with Thomas Jefferson.

Next is Samuel Adams.

Here’s what George Mason had to say.

Thomas Paine had the right perspective.

And we’ll finish up by sharing some wisdom from James Madison.

P.S. I feel quite confident that all of these quotes are genuine (not an easy task when perusing the Internet).

P.P.S. Maybe I’m being a Pollyanna, but it does seem that more folks on the left are coming to their senses on the issue of gun control.

• In 2012, I shared some important observations from Jeffrey Goldberg, a left-leaning writer for The Atlantic. In his column, he basically admitted his side was wrong about gun control.
• Then, in 2013, I wrote about a column by Justin Cronin in the New York Times. He self-identified as a liberal, but explained how real-world events have led him to become a supporter of private gun ownership.
• In 2015, I shared a column by Jamelle Bouie in Slate, who addressed the left’s fixation on trying to ban so-called assault weapons and explains that such policies are meaningless.
• More recently, in 2017, Leah Libresco wrote in the Washington Post that advocates of gun control are driven by emotion rather empirical research and evidence.
• Last but not least, Alex Kingsbury in 2019 acknowledged the futility of gun control in a column for the New York Times.

P.P.P.S. Feel free to enjoy this collection of satire on the topic of gun control.

I’m (unfortunately) not a rich person, but that doesn’t stop me from opposing punitive taxes on successful entrepreneurs, investors, and small business owners.

Likewise, I’m not a gun aficionado, but that doesn’t stop me from opposing efforts to restrict the rights of law-abiding people to own and bear arms.

In part, my views on guns are driven by cost-benefit analysis. Simply stated, the evidence is fairly clear that there is less crime when bad people have to worry that potential victims have the ability to defend themselves.

But I also very much agree with the constitutional argument for gun ownership, as well as the “societal disarray” argument.

Interestingly, it seems that more folks on the left are coming to their senses on the issue of gun control, generally for practical reasons rather than philosophical reasons.

• In 2012, I shared some important observations from Jeffrey Goldberg, a left-leaning writer for The Atlantic. In his column, he basically admitted his side was wrong about gun control.
• Then, in 2013, I wrote about a column by Justin Cronin in the New York Times. He self-identified as a liberal, but explained how real-world events have led him to become a supporter of private gun ownership.
• In 2015, I shared a column by Jamelle Bouie in Slate, who addressed the left’s fixation on trying to ban so-called assault weapons and explains that such policies are meaningless.
• More recently, in 2017, Leah Libresco wrote in the Washington Post that advocates of gun control are driven by emotion rather empirical research and evidence.
• Last but not least, Alex Kingsbury in 2019 acknowledged the futility of gun control in a column for the New York Times.

Today, we’re going to add to the collection.

Charles Blow of the New York Times recently wrote about how he has become more understanding of why fellow blacks want to own guns.

Growing up in rural northern Louisiana, everyone I knew, at least every household, seemed to have guns. …Gun ownership was the norm in those parts, including in the Black community. It was not associated with danger but with safety. …Indeed, one could argue that the right to bear arms in this country has never been so brazenly and openly abridged as it has against Black people. Many state codes prohibited Black gun ownership before the Civil War and allowed for the disarmament of Black people after. …When I moved north, first to Detroit and then to New York, I moved into a mental space of more stringent gun control. …city dwellers simply didn’t have the same need for weapons as the people in the rural community where I was raised… I, like many, were convinced that fewer guns in the Black community would make it safer. But, for many Black people, that sentiment has turned. …gun sales to Black people are surging. …I, as much as anyone, would like to live in a society in which all citizens felt safe without the need of personal firearms. America could have created such a society. However, it chose not to. …many Black people feel the need to defend themselves from their own country.

To be sure, Mr. Blow can’t be considered a full convert to the 2nd Amendment. That being said, I think it’s nonetheless remarkable that even a committed, hard-core leftist has (partially) seen the light.

Though I can’t resist quibbling with one point in his column. He wrote, “America could have created” a society where gun control would be desirable because no guns would be needed, but “it chose not to.”

I would replace “it chose not to” with “our government is not sufficiently competent.”

Heck, I would probably add “or trustworthy” as well. Given the unsavory history of gun control, Mr. Blow should be among the first to appreciate that argument.

P.S. In 2018, I shared the story of Ryan Moore, another leftist who changed his mind on gun control. But since he also evolved away from being a leftist, I don’t include him

Back in 2012, I shared a video clip of Ice-T defending the 2nd Amendment, but that video is now dead, so I’m glad to see that Prager University has added his comments as a prologue to this defense of gun rights by Prof. Eugene Volokh.

Ice-T and Prof. Volokh make for a good combination, one dispensing common sense and the other sharing academic analysis.

In the case of Prof. Volokh, he walks through the language of the Constitution and succinctly explains why the 2nd Amendment clearly was designed to protect the individual right to keep and bear arms.

And that’s the view that consistent with the liberty-focused attitude of the Founding Fathers, who correctly saw government as a potential source of tyranny.

But there’s another part of the video that also deserves attention. Shortly before the 4:00 mark of the video, Volokh explains that the Founders gave people – through their legislators – the option of amending the Constitution (the great Thomas Sowell has made the same point).

And that does happen, sometimes with bad consequences.

But there’s been no serious effort to undo the 2nd Amendment for the simple reason that people value their constitutional liberties.

Indeed, states have been taking steps to expand and enshrine gun rights.

P.S. A British writer argued that defending gun rights was akin to defending slavery. In reality, the 2nd Amendment has been especially valuable for blacks.

Now that a socialist has been elected (with open support from the Communist Party), what comes next for Chile?

Lots of bad policy, for sure, but Axel Kaiser warns that the left also wants to replace the country’s pro-liberty constitution.

Axel, who is President of Fundación para El Progreso and also a Senior Fellow for the Atlas Center for Latin America, just scratches the surface in this short video. He told me that there are many other desirable provisions, including school choice.

So it shouldn’t be surprising that the left in Chile is so determined to replace it with a document that empowers politicians.

I wrote about this issue last year, citing experts (including folks on the left) who all agreed that giving politicians new powers over the economy was the clear purpose of a new constitution.

This is basically a fight about whether to replace rights with entitlements (or, in the language of philosophers, whether to replace “negative rights” with “positive rights”).

By the way, there’s research showing that a society based on liberties is the best way of generating the prosperity needed for higher living standards (i.e., the access to goods and service that proponents of positive rights claim to support).

And, earlier this year, I showed how that works conceptually.

But you don’t need empirical research or theoretical analysis. Just open your eyes and look around the world. The nations based on socialism and so-called positive rights have produced economic misery and deprivation.

By contrast, there’s a much better track record – especially for ordinary people – in countries where government plays a smaller role.

It’s tragic that Chilean voters chose the redistribution approach in Sunday’s election. If they opt for a new constitution next year, the nation will be doomed.

P.S. By the way, here are some excerpts from today’s Wall Street Journal‘s editorial about the election.

Latin America, or much of it, is moving to the populist left, and Chile became the latest example by electing socialist Gabriel Boric… He’s the most leftist politician to win in Chile since Salvador Allende in the 1970s. His major theme was reducing economic inequality, which he proposes to do through state power. Mr. Boric wants to raise taxes, eliminate the country’s highly successful private pension system and increase government spending and regulation. He supports the constituent assembly now rewriting the constitution, and his goal is to give government more control over just about everything. …Foreign investors and Chileans with money and property are nervous. From the end of 2019—when the left launched riots demanding a new social contract—until August 2021, Chile’s central bank says some $50 billion (15% of Chilean GDP) fled the country. About half was investment capital and half from businesses and households. …on Monday the Chilean peso fell 2% against the U.S. dollar while the broader stock market plunged 10%. …The world is watching closely to see if the new president will…take Chile in the direction of such failing Latin states as Argentina or Peru, or worse.

Amen.

The best case scenario is that Chile is copying Argentina. The worst case is that it is copying Venezuela.

P.P.S. There was a president in the United States who wanted to remake society on the basis of “positive rights.” Fortunately, he did not succeed.

John Stossel has added to his collection of great videos. His latest releases asks whether the Constitution should be amended.

If you watch carefully, you’ll see that I made an appearance toward the end.

My clip lasts only about five seconds, but I used that short segment to say that the main goal should be enforcing the Constitution as currently written.

Note that I didn’t say as currently enforced.

That’s because the Supreme Court, starting in the 1930s and culminating with the horrid Wickard v. Filburn case in 1942, largely abandoned its responsibility to limit the powers of Washington.

Time to rectify that mistake.

To be more specific, I want the Supreme Court to limit the powers of Congress to the “enumerated powers” listed in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution.

That one step would dramatically shrink the federal government. No Department of Education., No welfare state. No Department of Agriculture. No redistribution. No Department of Housing and Urban Development.

I won’t be holding my breath waiting for this to happen, but Mr. Stossel was asking what we wanted, not what we expected.

Heck, I should have called for repeal of the 16th Amendment, so we also could enjoy the experience of living in a nation without an income tax.

Before concluding, I should take this opportunity to give some commentary regarding some of the ideas other people suggested in the video.

• Balanced budget amendment – It would be much better to have a Colorado-style spending cap. There is a lot of evidence that spending caps work. That is not the case, however, with rules that seek to limit deficits.
• Term limits – I don’t like career politicians, so kicking them out of office after a dozen years is a good idea. Though maybe this satirical idea for just two terms would be even better.
• Gift clause – I’m not familiar with the “gift clause” provision in some state constitutions, which was mentioned by Christina Sandefur. But it would be great if politicians no longer could provide special subsidies to their cronies.

P.S. I mentioned the horrid Wickard V. Filburn case. The Obamacare decision may be even worse.

P.P.S. As Walter Williams noted, maybe we need another president like Grover Cleveland.