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Re:Civil Liberties vs. Constitutional Rights (Score:2)

the ACLU fights for the freedom of speech. Period.

No less an authority than G. Robert Blakely, the Notre Dame law professor who wrote RICO, warns that applying it to protesters will have a chilling effect on speech. "Everybody who loves the First Amendment has got to sleep uneasily tonight," he said after the verdict.

And I think it's also likely to lose some of its credibility in future cases where it tries to defend potentially harmful speech. True, they might reasonably argue that there's a difference between the speech they're trying to restrict here and the speech they try to protect elsewhere. But many in the public might not buy those arguments, and might see the ACLU as being unprincipled, and as simply trying to restrict speech that hurt its favored causes while protecting speech that helps its favored causes. And the ACLU's reputation for principled defense of free speech, and the grudging admiration that this has at times earned the ACLU even from some of its opponents, is one of its most valuable assets.

My favorite blog list has been expanding, lately. I regularly read InstaPundit and The Right Coast, among others. I've recently begun reading Powerline and Michelle Malkin. My favorite "political" blogs, though, are actually economics blogs. I can't let a day go by without checking Marginal Revolution and The Volokh Conspiracy, which are two of the most interesting blogs I've read since I started reading Slashdot.

In addition to all of that, I read a wide variety of news sites every day, listen to news radio and watch news in the morning. That's all so I can do a better job in the writing on my own blog, where I cover politics, amateur radio, life, and anything I think is cool. Check out Lockjaw's Lair and don't forget to buy the T-Shirt.

Altercation (what liberal media?)

Here are some blogs I like that are often political, but not stupidly partisan, such as:

• The Volokh Conspiracy -- mostly libertarian law professors
• Marginal Revolution -- a couple of economists, one of whom also posts at The Volokh Conspiracy
• Daniel Drezner-- a political scientist
• Foreign Dispatches--a Nigerian-American programmer with many interesting perspectives.
• ParaPundit--some random bloke named Randall Parker, a computer programmer, I think.

In case you haven't heard, BlogLines is a great way to read blogs online.

1. Instapundit. Written by a Glenn Reynolds, a libertarian law professor at the University of Tennessee whose expertise is in second amendment issues, technology and communication. Perhaps the most influential and widely read blog.

2. The Corner. National Review's group weblog. Lots of contributors, who vary widely in tone (after you read it a while you come to recognize who the various authors are, and what points of view they hold). If you're not a conservative, you should check it out -- you won't agree with most of the stuff, but after a while you might learn that the folks on the "other side" aren't a bunch of moronic power-mad nazis: They actually have coherent reasons for believing what they believe, and can ably articulate those views. Understanding their arguments will help you sharpen your own.

3. The Volokh Conspiracy. A group weblog of libertarian and conservative law professors. The lead conspirator, Eugene Volokh, is a computer programmer-turned UCLA law professor; he is an expert in free speech issues, with some expertise in the second amendment as well. A lot of bloggers could learn from the civil tone of this blog -- i.e., no yelling, taunting or name-calling. Volokh believes writers should try to persuade others, not alienate them with overheated rhetoric.

Note that Volokh, like Reynolds, is a true libertarian: Conservatives are unlikely to agree with either of them on things like abortion and homosexuality.

4. Andrew Sullivan. An influential writer for Time, The New Republic and other print outlets. Perhaps the best-known openly gay conservative.

5. Kausfiles. A moderate-to-conservative Democrat, Mickey Kaus is utterly unsparing (and occasionally downright brutal) in his criticism of liberal excess, fellow democrats and the media. Doesn't write a lot, but is witty and sometimes offers extraordinary insights you won't get anywhere else.

6. Best of the Web. The Wall Street Journal's blog, written by James Taranto. A once-a-day read, it sums up a lot of current issues from a conservatives' point of view.

Yes, there are many many many many others. But if the conservative/libertarian blogosphere is like a tree, these are the trunk.

- Alaska Jack

... if you read The Volokh Conspiracy.

The point of the electronic demonstrations isn't to take down a site, according to Ricardo Dominguez, co-founder of the Electronic Disturbance Theater, or EDT, which is releasing a FloodNet program of its own. Unlike hackers' denial-of-service attacks, which often hijack computers against their users' will, EDT's JavaScript-based software depends on how many people use the program. "It's a way to let people around the world gather and let their presence be felt," Dominguez said.

Not that he would mind if a Republican server just happened to crash along the way. In 2002, at the EDT's direction, 43,000 people flooded the site of the World Economic Forum during its meeting in New York. The organization's website went offline for several hours following the demonstration.

The point of the electronic demonstrations isn't to take down a site, according to Ricardo Dominguez, co-founder of the Electronic Disturbance Theater, or EDT, which is releasing a FloodNet program of its own. Unlike hackers' denial-of-service attacks, which often hijack computers against their users' will, EDT's JavaScript-based software depends on how many people use the program. "It's a way to let people around the world gather and let their presence be felt," Dominguez said.

Not that he would mind if a Republican server just happened to crash along the way. In 2002, at the EDT's direction, 43,000 people flooded the site of the World Economic Forum during its meeting in New York. The organization's website went offline for several hours following the demonstration.

To quote in part:

To the best of my knowledge, though -- and I'm not an expert on the old pre-1976-Act rules related to renewals -- any such license would have disappeared with the end of the original 28-year-term of protection. Under the 1909 Copyright Act, copyrights endured only for 28 years, but the author or his heirs could renew them after the end of the original term; the new term would also last for 28 years, though that has been extended several times by Congress to the point that pre-1976 copyrights last for 95 years from publication. And the new term would be a fresh, clean copyright, free of any licenses or transfers that the author originally did as to the original term. (The whole point of the renewal was to give the author of a work that had proven its long-term value a chance to recapture some of the value, even if he sold his rights for cheap when he first wrote it, before the value of the work was clear.)

This Land Is Your Land was written and, I infer, published in 1940; presumably the copyright was renewed in 1968 by Guthrie's heirs (Guthrie died in 1967); and this renewed copyright would, I think, not be governed by any licenses that Guthrie had originally granted (though perhaps if the heirs also republished Guthrie's notation, that might be seen as a new license).

Sincerely yours,
Jeffrey Boulier

You do not need to be aware of any information sources not sanctioned by Big Media

WTF? DO NOT USE EITHER OF THOSE SITES AS INDICATING ANYTHING ABOUT EITHER PARTY. They're both a bunch of jackass extremists. For left/democrat stuff try atrios or Daily KOS or if you're in to economics Brad DeLong. For righties/repub you can check out Instapundit or the Volokh Conspiracy and I'm sure there are more sane rightish folks out there as well (although Instapundit is on the edges of what I call sane but I'm generally a lefty). As with all Blogs they're all worth checking out but take everything you see with a big grain of salt and get involved in the comments.

http://volokh.com/2004_03_14_volokh_archive.html#1 07922202284050918


[Eugene Volokh, 3/15/2004 07:53:35 AM]

Calling people traitors: As readers of this blog know, I've been quite critical of people calling others "traitors" simply because they disagree with them about the war or about foreign policy. There should be plenty of room in civil debate for good-faith disagreement about what's good for the country. Moreover, decent Americans can still sometimes consider the legitimate interests beyond the American national interest -- for instance, they might oppose an attack on some country because of a concern about the country's innocent citizens, whether or not the attack is in the interests of America's citizens. It's neither fair nor productive to reduce legitimate policy disagreements to accusations of lack of patriotism, or, worse still, treason?

But if this is true, then what's with all this that we've been hearing about "Benedict Arnold CEOs"? There are lots of hard and interesting questions about how American businessmen should deal with international competition. Some think that outsourcing is on balance bad for America, others think it's good. Some think that businessmen should focus first and foremost on the interests of America generally, others that businessmen should primarily serve the interests of their shareholders (within, of course, the boundaries of the law) -- or that outsourcing helps both shareholders and, ultimately, America generally, since without it we'd lose our competitive edge and thus have to lay off even more people. Reasonable minds can differ on this. But there's no justification for waging this battle through slurs and insults, and allusions (even if clearly hyperbolic) to a man whose name has become a snonym for "traitor."

But if I'm mistaken, and "Benedict Arnold" is permissible political hyperbole to be used against people whose economic policies you think undermine the American national interest, then why isn't "traitor" permissible political hyperbole to be used against people whose foreign policy you think undermines the American national interest?

To summarize:

• Property has two components, right to use and a right to exclude others from using. It is similar for both property and intellectual property.
• Property is a limit on the freedom of others. (for example, you don't have the right to sleep in my backyard).
• Traditional property--"If people have the right to exclude others from their land, they'll have more incentive to invest effort in improving the land." Intellectual property--"giving people the right to exclude others from new works or inventions will give people an incentive to invest effort in creating and inventing."
• Rivalrous and unrivalrous uses. This is the concept that is probably the most different between traditional property and intellectual property. To wit, if you take apples from my apple tree, I have lost the ability to sell that apple. But that is not true if you copy a MP3 from my hard drive. Volokh gives an example that shows the effect of nonrivalrous uses. Imagine a water well which has enough water such that everyone in the neighborhood can take water from it without siphoning it dry. Since drilling a well takes time and money, many in a neighborhood will rely on someone else to dig a well for them, and pay a fee for that service. But if others take from the well without paying, it discourages people from digging a well to begin with.

The opinion says that this is a narrow decision.

"Today we resolve an apparent conflict between California's trade secret law (Civ. Code, [sec.] 3426 et seq.) and the free speech clauses of the United States and
California Constitutions. In this case, a Web site operator posted trade secrets owned by another on his Internet Web site despite knowing or having reason to know that the secrets were acquired by improper means. The trial court found that the operator misappropriated these trade secrets in violation of section 3426.1 and issued a preliminary injunction pursuant to section 3426.2, subdivision (a), prohibiting the operator from disclosing these secrets. Accepting as true the trial court's findings, we now consider whether this preliminary injunction violates the First Amendment of the United States Constitution and article I, section 2, subdivision (a) of the California Constitution. We conclude it does not."

The opinion says that this is a narrow decision.

"Today we resolve an apparent conflict between California's trade secret law (Civ. Code, [sec.] 3426 et seq.) and the free speech clauses of the United States and
California Constitutions. In this case, a Web site operator posted trade secrets owned by another on his Internet Web site despite knowing or having reason to know that the secrets were acquired by improper means. The trial court found that the operator misappropriated these trade secrets in violation of section 3426.1 and issued a preliminary injunction pursuant to section 3426.2, subdivision (a), prohibiting the operator from disclosing these secrets. Accepting as true the trial court's findings, we now consider whether this preliminary injunction violates the First Amendment of the United States Constitution and article I, section 2, subdivision (a) of the California Constitution. We conclude it does not."

Vaguely related to this discussion is Eugene Volokh's blog today:

"Citizens were shackled in their actions by the universal passion for banning things" -- Judge Kozinski

What with all the other anti-bush lies in the queue, I imagine your second example is probably still awaiting it's well-deserved debunking.

Re your sig - You may find this helpful:

Volokh Archive Cheers.

One reason that "Nucular" bothers me is that it leads me to believe that the speaker doesn't know what he's talking about . . . . I think that I assume that people who have learned about a subject have been exposed to, and are likely to adopt, the generally accepted terms and pronunciations associated with it; and that people who don't know what they're talking about imitate other people who don't know what they're talking about.

Not only did Jimmy Carter pronounce it "nucular" -- I recently saw a tape of then-President Carter, in which he spoke the word -- he served on temporary duty with the Atomic Energy Commission, Division of Reactor Development and Naval Reactors Branch. He also assisted in developing the ("nucular") power plant for U.S.S. Seawolf, and was in training to become the engineering officer aboard Seawolf when he left the Navy. I suppose he's better qualified to decide the appropriate pronunciation than are most of us.

[This is] a hot topic for my wife and me. She pronounces it "correctly" and claims authority from both the OED and her English degree. I pronounce it "incorrectly" and claim authority from my diplomas in Nucular Engineering.