Two new libertarian academic blogs

Welcome to the New Radical Classical Liberals Blog | Reason.com - Ilya Somin, Volokh Conspiracy:

July 2, 2020 - "Last month, I lamented the end of the long-running Bleeding Heart Libertarians blog, and welcomed the establishment of 200-Proof Liberals, a new blog founded by several BHL alumni.

"I am happy to now welcome the Radical Classical Liberals blog, another new blog founded, in part, by former BHL contributors. It also includes numerous other prominent libertarian/classical liberal philosophers, legal scholars, and political theorists....

"Philosopher Andrew Jason Cohen has written a helpful post outlining the blog's goals:...

A view like that (re)developed and encouraged on BHL is needed in the blogosphere, in academia, and in our broader culture. This blog will provide that—a classical liberal view that maintains a clear and unapologetic concern for the plight of the less fortunate—at a point in time when it seems the world is finally being forced to take those concerns seriously. Importantly, we'll do so in a way meant to encourage greater civil dialogue. We hope to provide a counter to the sound bite culture so prevalent in contemporary media; we do so in order to provide greater understanding—both to our readers and to ourselves…

Our hopes for the blog are varied. They include showcasing the attractiveness of dynamic markets and anti-authoritarian solutions to contemporary problems, how these are often the best hope for those concerned with issues of deprivation, exclusion, and subordination, and how, far too often, government solutions are more pretense than substance. We are all concerned to show how freedom (we may disagree about what that is) goes hand in hand with prosperity for all. Putting that differently, we all recognize the value of markets and social justice on some understanding that recognizes (minimally) the basic moral equality of all human adults. Within that framework, our opinions are likely to vary considerably.

We hope to appeal to those who are curious about moral, legal, political, and social thought. While we all have our own existing biases, we hope to be able to bracket our prior beliefs and argue from acceptable premises to important conclusions — all with respectful and reasoned discussion.

"I look forward to their posts with great interest and anticipation!"

Read more: https://reason.com/2020/07/02/welcome-to-the-new-radical-classical-liberals-blog/

Volokh blog moves from Post to Reason

Inside the Beltway: Legal blog departs Washington Post for libertarian publication - Washington Times - Jennifer Harper:

December 13, 2017 - "An influential Washington Post blogger has bid farewell to that news organization. The Volokh Conspiracy — a legal and policy blog launched 15 years ago by UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh — has moved to Reason Magazine, published by the Los Angeles-based Reason Foundation, a bastion of libertarian principles, including individual liberty, free markets and the rule of law....

"Volokh — whose has two dozen law professors and attorneys on his vibrant team — describes the contributors as 'libertarian, conservative, centrist, or some mixture of these.' He also says he was concerned by the Post’s ever-tightening paywall and said that he wanted to assert the blog’s editorial independence — 'making sure that we can write what we want, in the way that we think is right....

"'We especially value our loyal, longtime readers, who are particularly likely to trust and enjoy our work. And it’s important to us that law students, college students, young lawyers, and others have free, easy access to the analysis and discussion on our site. Moving to Reason lets us do these things, while still partnering with a respected media organization that we have long admired'....

"'In an era of hyper-partisanship and tribal politics, The Volokh Conspiracy’s commitment to intellectual honesty and rational discourse has never been more essential or important. Eugene and the blog’s contributors have shaped national conversations on key policy areas and changed the way Supreme Court cases and legal issues are framed and discussed precisely because they engage ideas and opponents fairly, openly, and factually,' notes Nick Gillespie, editor-in-chief of Reason.com, who vows to provide 'the openness and independence the blog needs to thrive and expand its impressive influence.'"

Find the legal eagles’ new nest at Reason.com/Volokh."

Read more: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/dec/13/inside-the-beltway-legal-bloggers-walk-away-from-w/
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The contractarian libertarian

Libertarianism and contractarianism - The Washington Post - John Thrasher, The Volokh Conspiracy:

September 20, 2017 - "Liberalism (in the classical sense) and its more austere cousin libertarianism, are fundamentally doctrines that put personal and political freedom at the heart of things ... typically understood as freedom from government and social interference so that one can exercise one’s freedom to live the life of one’s choosing. Equality is crucial in securing freedom insofar as we understand equality as equality of fundamental rights to non-interference....

"It is a commonplace to argue, as Thomas Nagel did in an early review of Robert Nozick’s epoch-making Anarchy, State, and Utopia, that the libertarian and classical liberal focus on rights is 'without foundations.' Although this criticism is fundamentally mistaken, it is an unsurprising allegation given the preferred intuitionistic method of many of the most important philosophical libertarians....

"I argue that libertarians and liberals should embrace a contractual method of justification.... The core rights that define the freedom and equality of members of a free society are or would be, on this view, the result of an agreement between rational individuals for the purpose of mutual benefit....

"[T]he state of nature and contractual consent are not accurate descriptions of the history of political organization. This criticism, however, misunderstands the basic idea behind social contract theory: to model how a genuinely voluntary and mutually beneficial society would be structured.... The social contract acts as a tool to evaluate existing and possible social rules and institutions.

"Contractual theory, pursued this way, aims to bring the mutually beneficial power of market exchange to social governance. But ... David Gauthier notes in Morals by Agreement, 'before Smith’s invisible hand can do its beneficent work, Hobbes’s war of every man against every man must first be exorcized' (85). Markets require a foundation in basic norms of trust and the assurance that one’s rights are secure. This requires, at least initially, credible enforcement and governance mechanisms. This governance can be achieved in any number of ways, however, not all of which require explicit political institutions.... Indeed, the long-term project of the libertarian contractarian should be to investigate how forms of genuine self-government can realize, in modern societies, the contractarian goals of voluntariness and mutual benefit....

""The contractual approach helps to solve two perennial problems in libertarian and liberal theory ... the foundational problem of whether to base libertarian conclusions on some deontological basis (e.g., natural rights) or to adopt a consequentialist justification [and] how to adjudicate between the anarchist and minimal government strands in libertarian thought....

"[T]he contractual approach preserves a focus on the consequences of political institutions that many find appealing in consequentialist or utilitarian theory....  Similarly, the contractual method, based on rational agreement, provides a justification for rights that doesn’t rely on controversial foundations. This, as I argue more fully in Social Contractarianism, makes the contractual approach uniquely attractive....

"I also argue that the contractual approach can dissolve another traditional dispute between classical liberals and libertarians; whether ... libertarians are really committed to anarchism.... The contractual libertarian can admit that there is no moral obligation or duty to obey the state, but that in a free and open society with institutions that can meet the contractual test, there are good reasons to endorse the laws and social norms of such a society....

"Agreement is the only basis of a free society. These agreements must be voluntary and reflect our perceived interests. A society built on this model would be as close to a truly voluntary society as we could ever hope."

Read more: http://gdspoliticalanimal.blogspot.ca/2017/10/libertarianism-and-contractarianism.html
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Rethinking the Lockean Proviso

Libertarian property rights and the Lockean sufficiency proviso - The Washington Post - Fabian Wendt, Volokh Conspiracy:

September 22, 2017 - "John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government (1689) contains a defense of private property that makes use of the idea of labor-mixing. In §27, Locke writes: ‘[…] for this labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others.’ The ‘at least’ clause has become known as the ‘Lockean proviso’. It is usually understood as specifying a limit to labor-based acquisition of private property.

"Since libertarians care a lot about private property and its justification, the Lockean proviso has been an important tenet in libertarian theories of justice....  Right-libertarians either reject the Lockean proviso or endorse very weak interpretations of it, while left-libertarians endorse some egalitarian interpretation of the Lockean proviso (which allows appropriation until one has one’s equal share of natural resources or as long as the appropriation is compatible with equality of opportunity for welfare).

"In between right- and left-libertarianism, there is room for moderate interpretations of the proviso, and in particular for a sufficientarian interpretation, a sufficiency proviso. It is remarkable that this option has rarely been defended. The resulting theory of justice can be called ‘moderate libertarianism’.... [M]oderate libertarianism has advantages over both left- and right-libertarianism because it better coheres with the most plausible rationale for endorsing a libertarian theory of justice in the first place.

"What is this rationale for endorsing a libertarian theory of justice? It starts with the rather trivial fact that persons are purposive beings. They have the capacity to pursue all kinds of projects. Almost all projects require external resources, and they require being able to count on one’s resources. For that reason, persons as project-pursuers need the opportunity to acquire private property in external resources in one way or another. Following Eric Mack, one can take this to establish a ‘natural right to the practice of private property’. Together with the idea of self-ownership, this natural right can be regarded as the core of a libertarian theory of justice. Note that the project pursuit rationale for libertarianism does not rely on the moral force of Lockean labor-mixing. Rather, private property as a practice is justified as being responsive to persons as project pursuers....

"[I]f one embraces a libertarian theory of justice due to the project pursuit rationale, then one should also embrace a sufficientarian proviso. The basic idea is simple: Without sufficient resources, people are unable to live their lives as project pursuers. Because this is so, a libertarian who advances a libertarian theory of justice because s/he cares about people as project pursuers must also care about everyone actually having sufficient resources for living a life as a project-pursuer. This is why some sort of sufficientarian proviso should be incorporated into a libertarian theory of justice....

"First of all, my sufficiency proviso does not apply to specific acts of appropriation, but to the practice of private property as a whole. The practice of private property is justified because private property is necessary for living as a project pursuer, but it can only be justified under condition that it actually enables everyone to live as a project pursuer.

"Second, the sufficiency proviso does not unconditionally require us to bring everyone above the sufficiency threshold. The proviso only prescribes that the practice of private property should be designed in a way that makes sure that everyone has sufficient resources to live as a project pursuer, if this is possible without undermining the point of having a practice of private property in the first place."

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/09/22/libertarian-property-rights-and-lockes-sufficiency-proviso/?utm_term=.47439424a2b7
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Clint Bolick named to Arizona Supreme Court

Institute for Justice co-founder named to Arizona Supreme Court - The Washington Post - Jonathan H. Adler, The Volokh Conspiracy:

January 6, 2016 - "This morning, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey announced the appointment of Clint Bolick to the Arizona Supreme Court. The appointment is notable in several respects. This is Ducey’s first Supreme Court appointment. In selecting Bolick, Ducey also went outside party ranks. (Ducey is a Republican; Bolick is an independent.)

"The most notable thing about this appointment is Bolick’s extensive background in libertarian public interest litigation and advocacy of greater judicial protection of property rights and economic liberty. Among other things, Bolick co-founded the Institute for Justice, served as president of the Alliance for School Choice, and (most recently) was vice president for litigation at the Arizona-based Goldwater Institute. Before co-founding IJ, Bolick had worked at the Landmark Legal Foundation, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Justice Department. He is also the author of several books, including Unfinished Business: A Civil Rights Strategy for America’s Third Century, David’s Hammer: The Case for an Activist Judiciary,” and, most recently, Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution (co-authored with Jeb Bush)....

"In making the appointment, Ducey praised Bolick as a 'nationally renowned and respected as a constitutional law scholar and as a champion of liberty.' According to Ducey, Bolick 'brings extensive experience and expertise, an unwavering regard for the rule of law and a firm commitment to the state and citizens of Arizona. I’m confident Clint will serve impartially and honorably in this important role.'

"Bolick will face an initial retention election in two years, and then every six years thereafter. Justices on the Arizona Supreme Court also must retire at age 70."

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/01/06/institute-for-justice-co-founder-named-to-arizona-supreme-court/

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Is the U.S. Constitution a libertarian document?

“Is the Constitution Libertarian?” My Baxter Liberty Initiative Lecture on 10/6 - The Washington Post - Randy Barnett, the Volokh Conspiracy:

September 29, 2015 - "On Tuesday, October 6th, I will be giving the Baxter Liberty Initiative Lecture, sponsored by the Political Science Department of the University of California at Berkeley. The topic on which I was asked to speak is 'Is the Constitution Libertarian?'...  I just finished writing my lecture. Here is a portion of how it begins:

"Truth be told, libertarians have a love-hate relationship with the Constitution. On the one hand libertarians, like most Americans, revere the Constitution. Libertarians particularly appreciate its express guarantees of individual liberty and its mechanisms to preserve limited government. If being American is to subscribe to a creed, then the Constitution, along with the Declaration of Independence, are the foundational statements of this creed.

"But some libertarians have issues with the Constitution as well. And here I speak for myself, as well as others. There was a reason I eschewed writing about and teaching Constitutional Law when I became a law professor in favor of teaching Contracts. For, after taking Constitutional Law in law school, I considered the Constitution a noble, but largely failed experiment in limiting the powers of government. In my con law class, every time we got to one of the 'good parts' of the text that protected liberty, we turned the page to read a Supreme Court opinion explaining why that clause did not really mean what it appeared to mean....

"This fundamental failure of the Constitution to limit the size and scope of government has even led some libertarians to contend that the enactment of the Constitution represented a coup d’état by big government Federalists against the more preferable state-centered regime defined by the Articles of Confederation and favored by the Antifederalists.

"Yet many libertarians are genuinely torn, one might go so far as to say schizophrenic, about how the Constitution has actually worked out. Big and intrusive as government is today, it could be much worse. Few can point to other countries where individuals are freer in practice than in the U.S.... Libertarians still refer to the U.S. as a 'free country,' maybe still the freest on earth. That the Constitution deserves at least some of the credit for this freedom seems likely."

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/09/29/is-the-constitution-libertarian-my-baxter-liberty-initiative-lecture-on-106/
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Libertarian legal ideas going mainsteam

The Rehabilitationists: The Libertarian Movement to Undo the New Deal | The New Republic - Brian Beutler:

August 30, 2015 - "In November 2013, a who’s who of America’s conservative legal establishment descended on the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., for an annual meeting of the Federalist Society, the most influential conservative legal organization in the country. Current presidential candidates Scott Walker and Ted Cruz each made appearances.... Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was a featured speaker.... One of the biggest stars of the conference, however, was neither a Senate-confirmed official nor an elected politician, but a libertarian law professor at Georgetown named Randy Barnett....

"'The younger people, the people in law school, they seem to be gravitating toward people like Randy,' said attendee Josh Blackman, an associate law professor at the South Texas College of Law and a close friend of Barnett’s. 'When he gets off the stage he’s mobbed. ... There’s a crowd of people five or six feet deep surrounding him'....

"Barnett and his compatriots represent the vanguard of a lasting shift toward greater libertarian influence over our law schools and, increasingly, throughout our legal system. They’re building networks for students and young lawyers and laying the foundation for a more free-market cast of federal judges in the next presidential administration. Their goal is to fundamentally reshape the courts in ways that will have profound effects on society....

"Barnett believes the Constitution exists to secure inalienable property and contract rights for individuals. This may sound like a bland and inconsequential opinion, but if widely adopted by our courts and political systems it would prohibit or call into question basic governmental protections—minimum wages, food-safety regulations, child-labor laws—that most of us take for granted. For nearly a century now, a legal counterculture has insisted that the whole New Deal project was a big, unconstitutional error, and Barnett is a big part of that movement today....

"All libertarians want to fight federal regulations in Congress and the executive branch. But Barnett and his allies think courts should be empowered to throw regulations out even if political majorities support them. These ... professors have established beachheads at law schools across the country. In 2002, UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh founded a blog, The Volokh Conspiracy, as a hub for libertarian ideas, including Lochner revisionism. Today, it has become the most prominent academic legal blog in the country and now publishes under the auspices of The Washington Post. It boasts nearly two dozen contributing professors and mainlines detailed and informed libertarian legal arguments to thousands of the nation’s top lawyers, law students, clerks, judges, and opinion-makers every day.

"The contributors to The Volokh Conspiracy teach at the University of Minnesota, Northwestern, Emory, Duke, and elsewhere. Several hold positions at George Mason University’s law school, which is famous for its conservative faculty and, in 36 short years, has rocketed to prominence as one of the 50 best law schools in the country....

"In 1991, two former members of the Reagan administration, Chip Mellor and Clint Bolick, founded the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public-interest law firm now based in Arlington, Virginia, with $350,000 a year in seed money from the oil and gas magnate Charles Koch. They’ve challenged state licensing laws on behalf of hair braiders, florists, and other tradespeople across the country, but have also undertaken loftier crusades, including a doomed effort to overturn the Davis-Bacon Act, which requires that contractors pay their employees competitive wages on government-funded projects....

"With five offices around the country, a legal clinic training students at the University of Chicago Law School, and a staff of nearly 100, the Institute for Justice has become a proving ground for aspiring, ideologically committed lawyers. Every year, the group sends lawyers to law schools around the country to give presentations on public-interest law and recruit students into its ranks."

Read more: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122645/rehabilitationists-libertarian-movement-undo-new-deal
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Progressives libel libertarians over discrimination laws

Explaining the libertarian position on antidiscrimination laws - The Washington Post - David Bernstein:

April 2, 2015 - "With the recent and continuing hulabaloo over conflicts between antidiscrimination laws and freedom of religion, the charge inevitably arises that anyone who is opposed to, or even skeptical of, antidiscrimination laws that apply to private parties – which means most people who identify themselves as libertarians – is effectively not pro-liberty, but pro-discrimination.

"The most serious charge has been that libertarian skepticism of antidiscrimination laws that apply to private entities reflects, at best, insensitivity to race discrimination.  One blogger, reflecting a significant swath of progressive sentiment, argued that no matter how committed to racial egalitarianism any individual libertarian claims to be, 'Libertarianism is a racist philosophy. Libertarians are racists.'

"This is a rather odd criticism. For both philosophical and utilitarian reasons, libertarians are presumptively strongly opposed to any government regulation of the private sector.  It naturally follows that libertarians presumptively oppose restrictions on private sector discrimination.  It’s hardly an indication of racial animus, or even insensitivity, for libertarians to enunciate the exact same position on antidiscrimination laws that they take in all other contexts.

"The progressive libel of libertarians as racial troglodytes for their consistent defense of private-sector autonomy is ironic, given that similar illogic has so frequently been used against modern liberals.  When liberals defended Communists’ free speech and employment rights in the 1950s, their critics accused them of being Communist sympathizers, if not outright Communists.  More recently, progressives have been accused of being American-hating jihadist sympathizers when they stood up for the rights of terrorism suspects.  Critics have even charged civil libertarians with abetting racism for opposing hate speech laws.....

"While minorities can generally find productive economic niches in even highly prejudiced but market-oriented societies, there is no safe haven for minorities if racist ideas dominate politics and lead to harsh discriminatory legislation.

"Also, a free economic market protects minorities from discrimination to some degree because businesspeople have an economic incentive to hire the most productive workers and to obtain the most customers. By contrast, individual voters and political activists have no corresponding incentive to overlook or overcome their personal prejudices. Concern for the financial bottom line mitigates the temptation of economic entrepreneurs to discriminate; concern for the electoral bottom line, meanwhile, often leads politicians to stir up resentment against minorities."

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/04/02/explaining-the-libertarian-position-on-antidiscrimination-laws/
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Some important new libertarian books

Some important new books on libertarianism - The Washington Post - Ilya Somin, The Volokh Conspiracy:

February 26, 2015 - "A number of new books on libertarianism and related issues have come out recently or should be in print soon. If you are interested in libertarianism, these books may well be of interest to you....

"Perhaps the one with the broadest appeal is The Libertarian Mind, by David Boaz of the Cato Institute. It is the best recent introduction to libertarianism for a popular audience. Boaz does an excellent job of surveying both the history of libertarianism and libertarian positions on a variety of modern political issues. He is especially good on 'noneconomic' issues that many people with only a passing knowledge of libertarian thought don’t normally associate with the movement. For example, he emphasizes that libertarian thinkers were calling for the abolition of anti-sodomy laws, the War on Drugs, and other pernicious 'social' regulations long before these became mainstream positions elsewhere on the political spectrum.... Boaz also does a good job of raising and addressing a variety of standard objections to libertarian ideas that are traditional advanced by critics (particularly mainstream liberals and conservatives in the United States)....

"Jacob Levy’s Rationalism, Pluralism, and Freedom is a great overview of a longstanding issue in libertarian thought (and liberal thought more generally): the appropriate role of 'intermediate groups' such as religious organizations, voluntary associations, and organized ethnic groups. While such groups can enhance individual liberty, they can also undermine it....He argues that neither pure freedom of association nor complete homogenization of groups to eliminate illiberal tendencies is defensible. Thus, he concludes that the tension between group pluralism and the possible need for centralized control of these groups in order to protect individuals can’t be completely eradicated....

"Finally, I very much look forward to Jason Brennan and Peter Jaworski’s book Markets Without Limits. Despite the title, the authors don’t claim that markets should be literally without limits, in the sense that any and all possible commercial transactions are morally defensible. Rather, as the authors put it, they argue that '[i]f you may do it for free, you may do it for money.' For example, if it is permissible to donate organs, it should also be permissible to sell them in organ markets. On the other hand, it is wrong for a hit man to commit murder for profit, because committing murder is wrong regardless of whether he gets paid for it or not."

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/02/26/some-important-new-books-on-libertarianism/
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Obama, immigration, and the rule of law

Obama, immigration, and the rule of law [updated with additional material on precedents for Obama's action] - Washington Post - Ilya Somin, Volokh Conspiracy:

November 20, 2014 - "Opponents of President Obama’s recently announced plan to defer the deportation of up to 5 million undocumented immigrants argue that it undermines the rule of law. After all, they contend, the president is required to enforce federal law as written, not pick and choose which violators to go after and which to exempt.

"But, in reality, all modern presidents inevitably make policy choices about which violations of federal law to prosecute. Obama’s decision to defer deportation is in line with those of past presidents, and well within the scope of his authority.

"To the extent that the rule of law is in jeopardy here, it is because the scope of federal law has grown so vast that no administration can target more than a small percentage of violations, thereby unavoidably giving the president broad discretion. Moreover, at least under the original meaning of the Constitution, the legality of the immigration laws that Obama has chosen not to enforce in some cases is itself suspect.

"Because of the enormous scope [of] federal criminal law, presidents routinely exercise extraordinarily broad discretion in deciding which violations to prosecute. Far more violators are systematically ignored than punished. To take just one of many examples, for decades federal law enforcement officials have almost never prosecuted the possession and use of marijuana on college campuses, even though such possession is clearly forbidden by the Controlled Substances Act. By doing so, they have let many millions of federal criminals of the hook, including the last three presidents of the United States – far more than are exempted from deportation by Obama’s policy.

"Article II of the Constitution states that the president must 'take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.' But that does not mean that the president has an absolute duty to prosecute all violations of federal law, or that he cannot choose which ones to pursue based on policy considerations. If it did, virtually every president in the last century or more would be in violation."

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/11/20/obama-immigration-and-the-rule-of-law/
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Asset forfeiture: libertarian issue mainstreamed

Asset forfeiture, drug legalization, and the mainstreaming of libertarian ideas - The Washington Post - Ilya Somin, The Volokh Conspiracy:

October 27, 2014 - "Sunday’s New York Times article on the dangers of asset forfeiture abuse follows a major multi-part series on the same subject in the Washington Post. Last year, the liberal New Yorker also published a major article on the issue.

"As both the Times and the Post emphasize, the present asset forfeiture system in many states allows law enforcement agencies to seize property even if the owner has not been convicted or even charged with any property. Often, the police then get to keep the proceeds from the seizures for themselves, creating a perverse incentive to seize as much property as possible, regardless of the guilt or innocence of the owners. In many cases, as the Post notes, owners have little or no opportunity to reclaim their property because the procedures are involved are difficult and time-consuming, and often too expensive for poor and lower-middle class property owners to afford.

"As in the case of drug legalization, asset forfeiture reform is a cause long-championed by libertarians, which has recently hit the mainstream. The Institute for Justice, a prominent libertarian public interest law firm, has highlighted the issue for years, ans is currently spearheading both legal and legislative challenges to the system. Similarly, libertarians have for decades advocated abolishing the War on Drugs.... only recently has this idea begun to attract widespread mainstream public and elite support.

"Obviously, the two issues are integrally linked. As the Post series notes, the War on Drugs is one of the leading causes of asset forfeiture abuse. The Post article correctly emphasizes that much of the seized property is taken as a result of law enforcement operations undertaken as part of the War on Drugs. The threat that the War on Drugs poses to the property rights of innocent people is yet another reason for conservatives, among others, to rethink their traditional support for it."

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/10/27/asset-forfeiture-drug-legalization-and-the-mainstreaming-of-libertarian-ideas/
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Are libertarians paranoid?

Cass Sunstein on “paranoid libertarianism” - Ilya Somin, Volokh Conspiracy, Washington Post:

February 6, 2014 - "Famed Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein’s recent op ed attacking 'paranoid libertarianism' makes some reasonable points against crude libertarian arguments. But it is also in part confusing and in part overstated.

"The piece is confusing because it is easily misinterpreted as an attack on libertarianism more generally, even though Sunstein himself draws a distinction between the two. In addition, Sunstein seems to be focusing on paranoid fear of any type of government power.... Sunstein might have done better to choose some other label for the phenomenon he seeks to criticize.

"Semantic confusion aside, each of the five 'defining characteristics' Sunstein attributes to 'paranoid libertarianism' is readily found in crude versions of most other ideologies, including left-liberalism. In addition, each of the five is actually quite defensible if put in less extreme terms.

"The first item on Sunstein’s list is 'a wildly exaggerated sense of risks — a belief that if government is engaging in certain action (such as surveillance or gun control), it will inevitably use its authority so as to jeopardize civil liberties and perhaps democracy itself.' The key word here is 'inevitably.' It is indeed absurd to think that anything government does inevitably endangers liberty or democracy. On the other hand, there are good reasons to believe that many government activities create serious risks to freedom, in part because widespread political ignorance compromises the ability of voters to effectively monitor government’s misdeeds. Libertarians are far from the only ones who worry that the combination of extensive regulation and voter ignorance can lead to a variety of harmful restrictions on liberty. Cass Sunstein himself has published an insightful book highlighting this danger (though his proposed solutions for it are very different from those offered by libertarians)."

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/02/06/cass-sunstein-on-paranoid-libertarianism/

Volokh Conspiracy blog moves to Washington Post

Volokh Conspiracy moves to Washington Post | United Liberty | Free Market - Individual Liberty - Limited Government - Matthew DesOrmeaux:

January 22, 2014 - "The libertarian moment indeed. It was just announced Tuesday that the hugely popular legal blog, Volokh Conspiracy, has been picked up by the Washington Post. The Bezos-owned paper will now host Eugene Volokh’s legendary blog on its website, which is sure to boost both its exposure and prestige, while the authors retain full control of their content. For those unfamiliar with the 12-year old blog, its authors are mostly law professors with a libertarian bent, who cover everything from Supreme Court decisions to NFL policies, all with a dry but fascinating flourish.

"This move immediately follows the departure of Ezra Klein and two others from his hugely popular, but primarily liberal, WonkBlog at the Washington Post. And less than two weeks before, Radley Balko, the civil libertarian firebrand was picked up by the Post as well. This has led to some jests about a 'vast libertarian conspiracy” brewing at the Post. Though certainly no conspiracy, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and new owner of the Washington Post, has been rumored to have libertarian sympathies"

Read more: http://www.unitedliberty.org/articles/16306-volokh-conspiracy-moves-to-washington-post
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John Mackey joins Students for Liberty Board of Advisors

Whole Foods CEO Joins Libertarian Student Group's Board of Advisors - Steven Nelson, U.S. News & World Report:

June 27, 2013 - "John Mackey, the founder and co-CEO of trendy organic supermarket chain Whole Foods, has joined Students for Liberty's board of advisors.

"The libertarian student group announced Mackey's new position Thursday. The businessman joins a dozen other notable advisors, including 2012 Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson and UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh.

"Mackey is well-known for his conservative political positions. Earlier this year, Mackey said President Barack Obama's 2010 health care reform law was consistent with fascism. "In fascism, the government doesn't own the means of production, but they do control it — and that's what's happening with our health care programs and these reforms," he explained to NPR. Mackey later said using the term fascism was "a bad choice"....

 "''Students For Liberty empowers students all over the world to be entrepreneurial activists on behalf of a free and prosperous society,' Mackey said in a statement released by the group. 'They've created an impressive and growing community of young people who understand and promote the ethical foundations of capitalism based on the importance of voluntary exchange and cooperation.'"

Read more: http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2013/06/27/whole-foods-ceo-joins-libertarian-student-groups-board-of-advisors