The US Constitution’s Eighth Amendment forbids “excessive bail” in criminal prosecutions. That prohibition seems somewhat vague. I guess we’re just expected to know excessive bail when we see it. Two current cases demonstrate not just excessive bail, but abuse of the whole idea of bail for the purpose of holding un-convicted defendants as political prisoners.
Tag: history
Schooling Was for the Industrial Era, Unschooling Is for the Future
The trouble is that we have left the Industrial Era for the Imagination Age, but our mass education system remains fully entrenched in factory-style schooling. By many accounts, mass schooling has become even more restrictive than it was a century ago, consuming more of childhood and adolescence than at any time in our history.
Take a Knee. Take a Seat. Take a Chill Pill.
If it bothers you to the point of distraction that some people are, by your lights, insufficiently respectful of the Stars and Stripes, your priorities are way out of whack. And if the flag does indeed stand for freedom, you’re part of the problem, not part of the solution.
No Such Thing As Free School
It should come as no surprise that, when the government teaches, it happens to teach that government is a positive good, and that without government, there’d be no roads, and we’d all be at the mercy of war lords and other horrible creatures. So shut up, submit, pay your taxes and follow the rules.
Bump Stock Ban Boogie: The Latest Silly Political Dance Craze
Every time there’s a “public mass shooting” in America, the usual suspects climb atop of the pile of bodies before they’re even cold and start doing the funky chicken to the tune of “gun control, gun control, this wouldn’t happen if we just added one more gun control law to the hundreds of gun control laws that we already have.”
Why a Radical Libertarian Can Enjoy a Show About a British Monarch
Here I am, a radical libertarian, enjoying a show whose protagonist is the monarch of one of the world’s brutal and oppressive empires. How do I square that circle?
Yalta Bibliography I
The Yalta Conference of 1945 has been shrouded by inattention from mainstream historians. As I find writings on this neglected but critical point in history, I will share the references here in this Blog.
Voluntary Law and Order
People are not all the same, and they make different choices because they have different values, circumstances, and levels of understanding. Sometimes those choices are peaceful and wise; sometimes they are not. So what are the best ways to promote good choices and cooperation while preventing and providing resolution for conflict?
The Yalta Fault Lines
Is it a coincidence that one of the most seismic occasions in human cultural history occurred at a place that is characterized by catastrophic geological phenomena?
White Privilege is Definitely Real
I believe in white privilege in a very significant regard. The privilege that I speak of is so significant that it’s had the power to allow millions of my fellow whites to lift themselves out of a countless number of circumstances and to reach the highest levels of social, political, and economic class. For those who don’t have this privilege, it’s kept them mired in internal and external conflict, convinced that without this privilege they can never achieve the same levels of whatever class as those who have it. And the thing is, they aren’t wrong.