Two Signs Nullification is Going Mainstream

These are certainly anecdotal, but should be cause for encouragement nonetheless.

Over the past two weeks I’ve noticed a dramatic increase in my Google Alerts for “nullification.” Where I was getting alerts several times a week, and often from smaller websites and blogs, I’m receiving regular notices, usually from higher-profile organizations. This is no doubt the result of a near-nationwide push against the president’s new gun control proposals, and is likely to taper off, but its impact on the general public’s awareness of the “rightful remedy” shouldn’t be discounted.

The second indicator is from a local TV news station. In an advertising montage of recent news stories, a reporter says something to the effect that a recent proposal in the house would prohibit the implementation of the program. This is likely a reference to a Missouri house bill to nullify the Affordable Care Act.

Blaming Immigrants Instead of the State

Judge Andrew Napolitano bravely posted the following two comments on his Facebook page this morning, reinforcing statements he made yesterday on FOX Business Channel’s Varney & Co.

“You can’t ‘legalize’ a natural right.”

“Immigration is a natural right.”

Speaking to Stuart Varney, Judge Napolitano defended the idea that governments have no just authority in preventing individuals from moving in and out of countries. See the brief conversation here.

Well, the Judge was blasted by many of his fans for taking such a “radical” and “Lefty” stand as defending individual liberty and free trade. For some reason conservatives, and many libertarians for that matter, have a hard time with this issue. They’re all about defending free markets, but when it comes to immigration, just as with foreign policy for these folks, the federal government is not to be questioned.

The federal government can’t be trusted with health care, regulating most business transactions, and they do a terrible job delivering letter mail. And yet, for some reason, these conservatives believe the government knows best how many people, and from which country they hail from, should be allowed to enter the arbitrary borders of the United States at any given moment in history. It should be obvious this is nonsense, and yet hundreds of people will berate a man who suggests such a notion.

The problem isn’t free immigration, or open borders, or anything of the sort. The problems most anti-immigration (even those who try to distinguish themselves by including the preface “legal”) attribute to immigrants result instead from the state. See this Mises Daily from a few years ago, in which I lay it all out.

‘Can We Stop Calling it Murder?’

The city government of Lawrence, Kansas is in the planning stages of how to mark the 150th anniversary of the “Lawrence Massacre.” On August 21st, 1863, members of the Missouri militia, lead by William C. Quantrill, rode into Lawrence and burned much of the town, killing approximately two hundred men and boys. The attack was said to be revenge for the attack on Osceola, Missori, which had taken place two years prior to “Quantrill’s Raid.”

The question of how to mark the anniversary was the topic of discussion at one radio station this past evening, and one listener was apparently offended by the language used to describe the event. He asked “Can we stop calling it murder?” He then noted that the deaths happened during war, as if killing innocent people is somehow transformed into morally acceptable behavior when done in concert with a war.

As it turns out, it’s not; killing is not made tolerable simply because some guys vote to go kill other people. Ethical norms may not be suspended by any government, for any reason, and it’s offensive to suggest otherwise. The fact that young boys were murdered, young boys who had no part in sacking Osceola two years prior, is not made just by virtue of a white paper issued by the state regarding hostilities between waring factions.

A Curious Case Against Freedom

Just the other day I was listening to Roderick Long being interviewed by Lew Rockwell, and they discussed a speech that Long delivered some years ago at the Mises Institute. A transcript of the speech can be viewed here, and I highly recommend it. Rockwell mentions that Walter Block considers it one of the single best cases for libertarian anarchy, and while my experience is limited, it’s certainly compelling.

A point that Long doesn’t raise directly, and neither do audience members at the end, is the sort of backwards logic applied by some opponents of a free society. Minarchists and many libertarians commonly reject free market anarchism on the grounds that it would eventually lead to another state. In short, they fear such a political system would revert to a coercive state as the various protection agencies and arbitration services formed a cartel.

So essentially their argument boils down to: what we have now is unjust and inefficient, but because we may end up with something else that is unjust and inefficient, let’s stick with — more or less– the system we now have. In some ways this is analogous to: I’m uncomfortable in my current house, with all of its defects, but just in case I get another house with similar problems, I’ll stay put. This seems like a pretty shaky argument against a free society.

They both Agree Violence is the Answer

I wonder if the 3×5 card of Approved Opinion has a reverse, or if it’s left blank in order to leave space for taking notes from our wise overlords. Tom Woods takes on yet another proponent of this narrow spectrum between Charles Schumer and John McCain, this time from a Catholic blog written by Mark Shea.

In this piece, Woods quotes a friend who sent the article by Shea:

What I find really disturbing about this whole exchange is the absolute refusal to even consider the possibility of a peaceful secession from the Union, and how such a level of disdain and thinly veiled aggression is directed toward those who want to discuss the issue.  There also seems to be a blame-the-victim psychology at work here, what with the language of a military suppression of secession being “richly deserved”.  In the hypothetical scenario, it doesn’t even occur to them that it might be the United States who is the aggressor.  No, it would be little Vermont, who apparently would be “asking for it” and would deserve whatever they get.

This enthusiastic support for military aggression, in the event a state seceded or nullified a federal edict, is something I mentioned briefly in a recent column at the Tenth Amendment Center. I wrote:

So common is this appeal to ”might make right” logic that I’m beginning to wonder if, rather than just a poor argument, it’s more of a veiled threat. As if to suggest that, were enough states to push back hard enough, the federal government would respond with force. As quick as these proponents of centralized power are to cite the most destructive and unnecessary war ever fought in the United States, I’m afraid they would cheer such a totalitarian exercise.

This is a point raised by conservatives and liberals alike, and as I suggested before, is quite disturbing. If anyone doubts the Left and Right aren’t all that different from one another, this example of both groups concurring that war on peaceful secessionists is legitimate should raise some questions.