Year: 2008

Categories
property rights

Poison Ivy League

Columbia University officials may care about advancing human knowledge, and about nurturing young people. Their moral sensibilities may be highly refined when it comes to academic pursuits. But such virtues apparently do not prevent these guardians of learning from acting like thugs when thuggery seems convenient.

Columbia wants to expand into an area of Harlem called Manhattanville and is willing to abuse the state’s eminent domain power to do so. Who cares about morality and rights, or the foiled lives and livelihoods of innocent people, when there’s property to be nabbed, right?

It’s quite a scam, actually. Columbia has acquired many buildings in the neighborhood, but is not maintaining them. Because of Columbia’s own run-down buildings, the state has formally declared the neighborhood to be “blighted.” If the entire area is now condemned, full ownership can be transferred to Columbia. Which will clean things up immediately.

Meanwhile, Nick Sprayregen, the owner of several well-kept buildings in Manhattanville, is having trouble renting out units of his self-storage business because of the specter of Columbia’s eminent-domain grab. Plus, the firm that New York State used to determine whether the land is blighted had also been employed by Columbia itself — to advocate government approval of its expansion and possible use of eminent domain.

In short, we have only a perverse pretense of due process here. Columbia flunks Ethics 101 but gets an A in con artistry.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

A Congressman Makes Sense

Have I stumbled upon an alternative universe? There is a congressman actually making sense.

Well, to be more precise, he’s not yet a congressman, he’s Congressman-Elect Jared Polis, a Democrat from Colorado. Polis is a supporter of voter initiatives and has personally been involved in state ballot measures. He says the initiative process in Colorado and elsewhere “doesn’t work perfectly” but that it is “far better that we have one than that we don’t have one.” That’s certainly true.

Polis argues that “[t]here are some policies that by their very nature are unlikely to ever be implemented by an elected legislature. These are things like campaign finance reform, term limits — types of issues where it affects the members personally. . . .”

One example Polis cites is the open meetings law passed by initiative in Colorado. “The US Congress doesn’t have that,” he reminded radio listeners recently. “Congress literally still has the smoke filled room. . . .”

Polis adds that he is “very interested in seeing what a national initiative system might look like.” As a newly minted member, he is expected to introduce legislation to create such a system.

Knowing how Congress works, I’m not holding my breath, of course. The politicians and special interests won’t want any such citizen input.

But it is refreshing to see someone in Congress be serious about empowering the American people. At every level of government, voters should have a check on their elected officials.

That’s simply common sense.

So is this. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
general freedom

Blogging Now Illegal?

Has political blogging been outlawed in Italy? Maybe. A disturbing precedent has been laid down, at any rate.

Back in May of 2008, a Sicilian judge determined that historian and blogger Carlo Ruto was guilty of publishing a “clandestine newspaper,” which it turns out is illegal.

How did Ruto’s blog achieve the status of a “clandestine newspaper”? It wasn’t properly registered with the authorities. Also, it had a headline. If your blog entry has a headline, it’s a newspaper, the judge ruled.

The penalty is 250 Euros or up to two years in prison. Ruto was spared imprisonment but fined and ordered to take down the site, which he did. This all goes back to a 1948 law requiring registration of newspapers. Which in 2001 was deviously modified to include websites.

Ruto was targeted for being critical of connections between the Italian government and the mafia. Maybe his case is the exception. But recently, a well-known Italian politician, Giuseppe Giulietti, said that almost the entire contents of the Italian Internet “could be considered illegal.” Bloggers are up in arms, as well they should be.

Sounds incredible. But bloggers in the U.S. have been threatened with similar sledgehammers, in the form of campaign finance regulation.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Second Amendment rights

Campers Packing, Legally

The Department of Interior has decided to abide by the Second Amendment.

Why? Maybe the recent Supreme Court ruling that the Constitution does indeed protect an individual’s right to bear arms has something to do with it. Or maybe DOI folk just heard about bad people with guns going after innocent people without guns.

Whatever the reasons, the department deserves a cheer or three, for revising its regulations in the direction of common sense. The department now allows visitors to national parks to carry concealed firearms not only for hunting but also for self-defense, so long as doing so is allowed under state law.

Interior’s official Q&A about the new policy is fairly straightforward. Won’t the new rules endanger wildlife and other visitors? Why, no. There is “no reason to believe that law-abiding citizens who carry concealed firearms will . . . use their firearms for illegal purposes.”

Aren’t the national parks safe places? So, why would any visitors even need to carry arms? The department replies that criminal activity does sometimes occur on federal lands, but that in any case, “we do not believe it is appropriate to refuse to recognize state laws simply because a person enters the boundaries of a national park or wildlife refuge.”

How long will the reasonable new rule last? That depends in part on the vagaries of politics and political appointments. But it’s constitutional, it makes sense . . . could that give it some staying power?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
property rights

Good Property Rights Make Good Neighbors

The California Coastal Commission sought to tear down a fence on private property. The fence, on the property of Martin and Janis Burke in Torrance, California, marks the boundary between public land and private land.

This seems like a benign enough purpose. The “private” part of “private property” means you get to keep people off your property, no?

The fence also serves a wider public purpose. It stops hikers from climbing to an unstable bluff at which two people have actually died. Remove the fence and it become easier to veer off public property, easier to reach the unstable bluff, easier to die.

The story appears to be another case of bureaucrats with too much time on their hands, too eager to interfere in the lives of others in the name of some value allegedly superior to individual rights. In this case, even to individual lives.

Fortunately, the Pacific Legal Foundation, representing the Burkes, recently won a victory over the commission. A California court says the commission lacks the authority to force the fence down.

J. David Breemer, Principal Attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation, notes that the foundation has a track record of deflecting the excesses of the California Coastal Commission.

One moral of the story: Property rights are a “good fence” against the predations of abusive government. They, too, should be allowed to stand.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets government transparency

Keep Bailing?

Not too happy about the $700 billion financial bailout or billions more for the Big Three automakers? Don’t worry, that’s just peanuts!

The overall government “bailout” is quite a bit larger — as in ten times larger. The federal government — in other words, you and me (and our rulers) — is ready to provide more than $7.7 trillion to bailout whoever might need to be bailed out.

This includes $3.2 trillion already taken from the Federal Reserve by financial institutions. And it also includes money from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Federal Housing Administration mortgage guarantees.

The total amount of $7.7 trillion is equivalent to half our yearly gross national product. So, should families, when they get in financial trouble, borrow and spend half their yearly income? No, I think this is one of those “don’t try this at home” type deals.

When Congress approved the legislation for $700 billion to establish the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), there was talk of the need for transparency. But there has been precious little transparency for all this other money spewing forth from the Federal Reserve and various government entities.

Paul Kasriel, chief economist at Chicago-based Northern Trust Corp. says, “given that the Fed is taking on a huge amount of credit risk now, it would seem to me as a taxpayer there should be more transparency.”

Yes, how about a smidgen of transparency? Or better yet, an end to all these bailouts.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.