I wrote last week about the City of Whitewater’s survey for information about a community calendar on the municipal website. See, Community Calendars. FREE WHITEWATER’s not really a community calendar, but there are private ones already available, so the city’s suggestion that it might produce its own version is odd. There’s no insuperable impediment to…
Law
Law, Planning
The Institute for Justice on Five Years Since Kelo: Considering One of the Supreme Court’s Most-Despised Decisions
by JOHN ADAMS •
Five years ago, the United States Supreme Court handed down a poor, and consequently notorious, decision in Kelo v. City of New London. Here’s a brief summary of the case, as described in the preceding link: The case arose from the condemnation by New London, Connecticut, of privately owned real property so that it could…
Law
The Ineffectual and Tragic Approach
by JOHN ADAMS •
We have every reason to be concerned about the dangers of drug dependency for individuals and society; we have no reason to persist in trying to overcome drug dependency with the costly and ineffectual methods we’ve used these past three decades. Illegal narcotics are a bad thing; the methods of the war on drugs haven’t…
Law, Libertarians, Liberty
Cathy Young on Racism, Civil Rights, and Libertarians
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s been a controversy over remarks that Rand Paul, a Republican candidate for U.S. senate made, about the 1964 Civil Rights Act. While on an MSNBC program, Paul (the son of libertarian-leaning Republican Ron Paul) implied that he supported the right of private private businesses to decide whom to serve. (The 1964 Act prohibits the…
Government Spending, Law, Laws/Regulations, Police
Sarah Palin’s Right: Minor Marijuana Arrests Are a Waste of Police Resources
by JOHN ADAMS •
I’ve supported reform of Wisconsin’s laws so that chronically ill people can take regulated medical marijuana lawfully. I think reform in Wisconsin is long overdue, and that although reform did not pass in our recent legislative session, it one day will. When that happens, Wisconsin will join many other states that allow medically prescribed marijuana.…
Law
Wired on “Spamming” a Judge
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s a story at the Wired website about a contempt citation for spamming a federal judge that the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently overturned. See, Spamming a Judge. Infomercial king Kevin Trudeau had been sentenced to thirty days’ time for contempt of court, because he urged his followers to write to the federal…
Law, Laws/Regulations, Police
Maryland: Still Wrong on Civil Liberties
by JOHN ADAMS •
I have written about the disregard for civil liberties in Maryland before. See, Something’s Rotten about Policing in the State of Maryland, and Elsewhere. In that earlier post, I wrote about a SWAT raid gone bad — in almost every which way — at the home of the completely law-abiding mayor of Berwyn Heights. Maryland’s…
Law, Laws/Regulations, Liberty, Politics
Institute for Justice: Protecting Grassroots Activism
by JOHN ADAMS •
Freedom of speech and assembly are rights the United States Constitution, and the Wisconsin Constitution, readily recognize. Activism — persuading someone to a cause — should be free in a free society. Better put, we could not be a free society if conditions were otherwise. And yet, that simple truth runs against the schemes of…
Law
Again, DNA Exonerates the Innocent (and Identifies Someone Else)
by JOHN ADAMS •
I posted not long ago on the Innocence Project’s use of DNA identification to exonerate an innocent man, and direct prosecutors toward a guilty one. Tragically, Robert Lee Stinson spent twenty-three years in prison for a crime he did not commit, until being exonerated. For all those years, an actual killer, Moses Price, was uncharged…
Law, Laws/Regulations, Liberty
Government’s Overreach: Trying to Learn What You Read
by JOHN ADAMS •
Government officials often act as more than representatives of their people — they pursue an interest apart from their people, an often intrusive one into the lives of private citizens. In North Carolina, online retailer Amazon has filed a lawsuit to prevent block a North Carolina Department of Revenue request for individually identifiable information on…
Elkhorn, Law
Walworth County’s Arrogance of a Few
by JOHN ADAMS •
Walworth County is a small rural county in southeast Wisconsin. There are diverse delights in the county, from the many capable, caring, common people who live here, and from the natural beauty visible from at every vantage. Sadly, many of our politicians, bureaucrats, and judges are not among those delights. Even the simplest understanding seems…
Free Markets, Law, Laws/Regulations
Freeing Small Farms: Minnesota Farms Fight Protectionism
by JOHN ADAMS •
One often hears that residents should ‘shop locally.’ That’s a choice any consumer should be able to make. What would happen if a city told residents that not only should they shop locally, but that they could only buy products produced locally? Not a suggestion, not a request, but a law that said: Residents can…
City, Law, Laws/Regulations, Planning
Whitewater’s Planning Commission Meeting from 5/10/10: Residential Overlay
by JOHN ADAMS •
At Item 10 of the May 10th Planning Commission meeting, the Planning Commission considered a residential overlay ordinance, that would place greater restrictions than there would be, for example, in a conventional R-1 zoning district. (Two or fewer unrelated persons living in the single residence, rather than three or fewer persons.) The item stated that…
Law
Dodgy Science (Trying to Get) in the Courtroom
by JOHN ADAMS •
We’re an inventive people, but not every invention is reasonable simply because it’s the product of human reasoning. An good example of a bad idea is almost surely fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) brain scans to detect dishonesty. Wired has published a few stories about the procedure, the results of which a defense attorney in…