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| Ed Crane's Cato Memorandum | | Date Created: Aug 09, 2005, 11:23 PM |
 I look forward to Ed Crane's Cato memorandum every couple months. It's not available online that I know of (although Cato is). It's written for the Directors, Sponsors, and Friends of the Institute and consists of Ed's thoughts on the passing scene, libertarian issues, personal stuff, and a collection of articles that reference Cato.
Here's some excerpts from the latest issue:
"I'm always harping about how bad things are, so I thought I'd treat Bi-monthly Memo aficionados to some very good news. In a 4-3 decision, the Canadian Supreme Court dealt a huge blow to the welfare state in Canada (which we hope will have ramifications in Europe and the United States) in favor of the arguments of Dr. Jacques Chaoulli, that Canada's state-run monopoly health care system violated the right to liberty guaranteed in their constitution by effectively denying access to needed health care. The justices concurred that standing in line until you died because it was illegal to have alternative private health care delivery systems in Canada was a fairly significant denial of liberty. Dr. Chaoulli was by the Institute to meet with Mike Cannon, David Boaz, and me. He's an impressive individual who intends to make his case all around Western Europe and here in the United States. He is to socialized medicine what Jose Pinera is to Social Security...
Well, the Supremes aren't up to any good, are they? The silver lining to the bad decisions they've been handing down is that they may be a wake-up call for those of us who believe in limited government to realize that the debate over judicial philosophy has to transcend Roe v. Wade. It is wrong that the litmus test for a new Supreme Court justice is his or her position on abortion. The religious right has more or less hijacked the debate over judicial philosophy, and I'm not so certain that the left doesn't feel comforable debating Roe v. Wade and avoiding the more important issues, like federalism and private porperty. With respect to the latter two issues, of course, we have the horrendous 6-3 decision in Gonzales v. Raich, in which the Supremes forgot all about federalism and said the War on Drugs trumps a California law allowing sick and dying people to alleviate their suffering through the use of marijuana. That would seem like a pretty benign law, but not for drug warriors. Even Nino Scalia sided with the bad guys on this one because he is, as Roger Pilon put it, a "fair-weather federalist". Scalia is happy to invoke federalism when he agrees with something, but when it comes to his beloved War on Drugs, he can be standing face-to-face to a federalism issue and ignore it.
And then there was the equally egregious 5-4 decision in Kelo v. City of New London, where the Supremes ruled that the use of eminent domain doesn't have to be for "public use" as is plainly stated in the Fifth Amendment. No, if a private developer will end up paying more taxes, then your private property doesn't mean anything. After all, the politicians in the city of New London need money. Not surprisingly, the fifth vote on this decision came from Anthony Kennedy, who was also the fifth vote that defeated term limits for Congress. Anyway, the backlash against Kelo has been fairly significant and it may turn out to be a blessing in disguise. There is porposed legislation now that would prevent the federal government from employing eminent domain for purposes of economic development as well as limit states and localities in doing so if they are going to use federal funds for their development project. Our friends at the Institute for Justice will be taking similar approaches at the state level.
I think one of the interesting things about these cases is that the so-called liberal bloc on the Supreme Court was unanimous in decisions that clearly harm the little guy at the expense of the powerful. Whatever happened to the idea of liberals looking after the little guy? Well, the truth is that federalism and respect for private porperty are by far the most powerful tools for protecting the average American. Liberals in this day and age are more interested in enhancing the power of the state than they are in protecting the rights of individuals. Of course, far too many conservatives, particularly neoconservatives, feel the same way..." |
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