Beyond The Broken Spectrum

by Robert Nozick

Robert Nozick is Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University and the author of Anarchy, State, and Utopia and other books. This article is excerpted from his essay “Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism?” which originally appeared in The Future of Private Enterprise, ed. Craig Aronoff et al. (Georgia State University Business Press, 1986) and is reprinted in Robert Nozick, Socratic Puzzles (Harvard University Press, 1997).

It is surprising that intellectuals oppose capitalism so. Other groups of comparable socio-economic status do not show the same degree of opposition in the same proportions. Statistically, then, intellectuals are an anomaly.

Not all intellectuals are on the “left.” Like other groups, their opinions are spread along a curve. But in their case, the curve is shifted and skewed to the political left.

By intellectuals, I do not mean all people of intelligence or of a certain level of education, but those who, in their vocation, deal with ideas as expressed in words, shaping the word flow others receive. These wordsmiths include poets, novelists, literary critics, newspaper and magazine journalists, and many professors. It does not include those who primarily produce and transmit quantitatively or mathematically formulated information (the numbersmiths) or those working in visual media, painters, sculptors, cameramen. Unlike the wordsmiths, people in these occupations do not disproportionately oppose capitalism. The wordsmiths are concentrated in certain occupational sites: academia, the media, government bureaucracy.

Wordsmith intellectuals fare well in capitalist society; there they have great freedom to formulate, encounter, and propagate new ideas, to read and discuss them. Their occupational skills are in demand, their income much above average. Why then do they disproportionately oppose capitalism? Indeed, some data suggest that the more prosperous and successful the intellectual, the more likely he is to oppose capitalism. This opposition to capitalism is mainly “from the left” but not solely so. Yeats, Eliot, and Pound opposed market society from the right.

The opposition of wordsmith intellectuals to capitalism is a fact of social significance. They shape our ideas and images of society; they state the policy alternatives bureaucracies consider. From treatises to slogans, they give us the sentences to express ourselves. Their opposition matters, especially in a society that depends increasingly upon the explicit formulation and dissemination of information.

We can distinguish two types of explanation for the relatively high proportion of intellectuals in opposition to capitalism. One type finds a factor unique to the anti-capitalist intellectuals. The second type of explanation identifies a factor applying to all intellectuals, a force propelling them toward anti-capitalist views. Whether it pushes any particular intellectual over into anti-capitalism will depend upon the other forces acting upon him. In the aggregate, though, since it makes anti-capitalism more likely for each intellectual, such a factor will produce a larger proportion of anti-capitalist intellectuals. Our explanation will be of this second type. We will identify a factor which tilts intellectuals toward anti-capitalist attitudes but does not guarantee it in any particular case.

The Value of Intellectuals

Intellectuals now expect to be the most highly valued people in a society, those with the most prestige and power, those with the greatest rewards. Intellectuals feel entitled to this. But, by and large, a capitalist society does not honor its intellectuals. Ludwig von Mises explains the special resentment of intellectuals, in contrast to workers, by saying they mix socially with successful capitalists and so have them as a salient comparison group and are humiliated by their lesser status. However, even those intellectuals who do not mix socially are similarly resentful, while merely mixing is not enough–the sports and dancing instructors who cater to the rich and have affairs with them are not noticeably anti-capitalist.

Why then do contemporary intellectuals feel entitled to the highest rewards their society has to offer and resentful when they do not receive this? Intellectuals feel they are the most valuable people, the ones with the highest merit, and that society should reward people in accordance with their value and merit. But a capitalist society does not satisfy the principle of distribution “to each according to his merit or value.” Apart from the gifts, inheritances, and gambling winnings that occur in a free society, the market distributes to those who satisfy the perceived market-expressed demands of others, and how much it so distributes depends on how much is demanded and how great the alternative supply is. Unsuccessful businessmen and workers do not have the same animus against the capitalist system as do the wordsmith intellectuals. Only the sense of unrecognized superiority, of entitlement betrayed, produces that animus.

Why do wordsmith intellectuals think they are most valuable, and why do they think distribution should be in accordance with value? Note that this latter principle is not a necessary one. Other distributional patterns have been proposed, including equal distribution, distribution according to moral merit, distribution according to need. Indeed, there need not be any pattern of distribution a society is aiming to achieve, even a society concerned with justice. The justice of a distribution may reside in its arising from a just process of voluntary exchange of justly acquired property and services. Whatever outcome is produced by that process will be just, but there is no particular pattern the outcome must fit. Why, then, do wordsmiths view themselves as most valuable and accept the principle of distribution in accordance with value?

From the beginnings of recorded thought, intellectuals have told us their activity is most valuable. Plato valued the rational faculty above courage and the appetites and deemed that philosophers should rule; Aristotle held that intellectual contemplation was the highest activity. It is not surprising that surviving texts record this high evaluation of intellectual activity. The people who formulated evaluations, who wrote them down with reasons to back them up, were intellectuals, after all. They were praising themselves. Those who valued other things more than thinking things through with words, whether hunting or power or uninterrupted sensual pleasure, did not bother to leave enduring written records. Only the intellectual worked out a theory of who was best.

The Schooling of Intellectuals

What factor produced feelings of superior value on the part of intellectuals? I want to focus on one institution in particular: schools. As book knowledge became increasingly important, schooling–the education together in classes of young people in reading and book knowledge–spread. Schools became the major institution outside of the family to shape the attitudes of young people, and almost all those who later became intellectuals went through schools. There they were successful. They were judged against others and deemed superior. They were praised and rewarded, the teacher’s favorites. How could they fail to see themselves as superior? Daily, they experienced differences in facility with ideas, in quick-wittedness. The schools told them, and showed them, they were better.

The schools, too, exhibited and thereby taught the principle of reward in accordance with (intellectual) merit. To the intellectually meritorious went the praise, the teacher’s smiles, and the highest grades. In the currency the schools had to offer, the smartest constituted the upper class. Though not part of the official curricula, in the schools the intellectuals learned the lessons of their own greater value in comparison with the others, and of how this greater value entitled them to greater rewards.

The wider market society, however, taught a different lesson. There the greatest rewards did not go to the verbally brightest. There the intellectual skills were not most highly valued. Schooled in the lesson that they were most valuable, the most deserving of reward, the most entitled to reward, how could the intellectuals, by and large, fail to resent the capitalist society which deprived them of the just deserts to which their superiority “entitled” them? Is it surprising that what the schooled intellectuals felt for capitalist society was a deep and sullen animus that, although clothed with various publicly appropriate reasons, continued even when those particular reasons were shown to be inadequate?

In saying that intellectuals feel entitled to the highest rewards the general society can offer (wealth, status, etc.), I do not mean that intellectuals hold these rewards to be the highest goods. Perhaps they value more the intrinsic rewards of intellectual activity or the esteem of the ages. Nevertheless, they also feel entitled to the highest appreciation from the general society, to the most and best it has to offer, paltry though that may be. I don’t mean to emphasize especially the rewards that find their way into the intellectuals’ pockets or even reach them personally. Identifying themselves as intellectuals, they can resent the fact that intellectual activity is not most highly valued and rewarded.

The intellectual wants the whole society to be a school writ large, to be like the environment where he did so well and was so well appreciated. By incorporating standards of reward that are different from the wider society, the schools guarantee that some will experience downward mobility later. Those at the top of the school’s hierarchy will feel entitled to a top position, not only in that micro-society but in the wider one, a society whose system they will resent when it fails to treat them according to their self-prescribed wants and entitlements. The school system thereby produces anti-capitalist feeling among intellectuals. Rather, it produces anti-capitalist feeling among verbal intellectuals. Why do the numbersmiths not develop the same attitudes as these wordsmiths? I conjecture that these quantitatively bright children, although they get good grades on the relevant examinations, do not receive the same face-to-face attention and approval from the teachers as do the verbally bright children. It is the verbal skills that bring these personal rewards from the teacher, and apparently it is these rewards that especially shape the sense of entitlement.

Central Planning in the Classroom

There is a further point to be added. The (future) wordsmith intellectuals are successful within the formal, official social system of the schools, wherein the relevant rewards are distributed by the central authority of the teacher. The schools contain another informal social system within classrooms, hallways, and schoolyards, wherein rewards are distributed not by central direction but spontaneously at the pleasure and whim of schoolmates. Here the intellectuals do less well.

It is not surprising, therefore, that distribution of goods and rewards via a centrally organized distributional mechanism later strikes intellectuals as more appropriate than the “anarchy and chaos” of the marketplace. For distribution in a centrally planned socialist society stands to distribution in a capitalist society as distribution by the teacher stands to distribution by the schoolyard and hallway.

Our explanation does not postulate that (future) intellectuals constitute a majority even of the academic upper class of the school. This group may consist mostly of those with substantial (but not overwhelming) bookish skills along with social grace, strong motivation to please, friendliness, winning ways, and an ability to play by (and to seem to be following) the rules. Such pupils, too, will be highly regarded and rewarded by the teacher, and they will do extremely well in the wider society, as well. (And do well within the informal social system of the school. So they will not especially accept the norms of the school’s formal system.) Our explanation hypothesizes that (future) intellectuals are disproportionately represented in that portion of the schools’ (official) upper class that will experience relative downward mobility. Or, rather, in the group that predicts for itself a declining future. The animus will arise before the move into the wider world and the experience of an actual decline in status, at the point when the clever pupil realizes he (probably) will fare less well in the wider society than in his current school situation. This unintended consequence of the school system, the anti-capitalist animus of intellectuals, is, of course, reinforced when pupils read or are taught by intellectuals who present those very anti-capitalist attitudes.

No doubt, some wordsmith intellectuals were cantankerous and questioning pupils and so were disapproved of by their teachers. Did they too learn the lesson that the best should get the highest rewards and think, despite their teachers, that they themselves were best and so start with an early resentment against the school system’s distribution? Clearly, on this and the other issues discussed here, we need data on the school experiences of future wordsmith intellectuals to refine and test our hypotheses.

Stated as a general point, it is hardly contestable that the norms within schools will affect the normative beliefs of people after they leave the schools. The schools, after all, are the major non-familial society that children learn to operate in, and hence schooling constitutes their preparation for the larger non-familial society. It is not surprising that those successful by the norms of a school system should resent a society, adhering to different norms, which does not grant them the same success. Nor, when those are the very ones who go on to shape a society’s self-image, its evaluation of itself, is it surprising when the society’s verbally responsive portion turns against it. If you were designing a society, you would not seek to design it so that the wordsmiths, with all their influence, were schooled into animus against the norms of the society.

Our explanation of the disproportionate anti-capitalism of intellectuals is based upon a very plausible sociological generalization.

In a society where one extra-familial system or institution, the first young people enter, distributes rewards, those who do the very best therein will tend to internalize the norms of this institution and expect the wider society to operate in accordance with these norms; they will feel entitled to distributive shares in accordance with these norms or (at least) to a relative position equal to the one these norms would yield. Moreover, those constituting the upper class within the hierarchy of this first extra-familial institution who then experience (or foresee experiencing) movement to a lower relative position in the wider society will, because of their feeling of frustrated entitlement, tend to oppose the wider social system and feel animus toward its norms.

Notice that this is not a deterministic law. Not all those who experience downward social mobility will turn against the system. Such downward mobility, though, is a factor which tends to produce effects in that direction, and so will show itself in differing proportions at the aggregate level. We might distinguish ways an upper class can move down: it can get less than another group or (while no group moves above it) it can tie, failing to get more than those previously deemed lower. It is the first type of downward mobility which especially rankles and outrages; the second type is far more tolerable. Many intellectuals (say they) favor equality while only a small number call for an aristocracy of intellectuals. Our hypothesis speaks of the first type of downward mobility as especially productive of resentment and animus.

The school system imparts and rewards only some skills relevant to later success (it is, after all, a specialized institution) so its reward system will differ from that of the wider society. This guarantees that some, in moving to the wider society, will experience downward social mobility and its attendant consequences. Earlier I said that intellectuals want the society to be the schools writ large. Now we see that the resentment due to a frustrated sense of entitlement stems from the fact that the schools (as a specialized first extra-familial social system) are not the society writ small.

Our explanation now seems to predict the (disproportionate) resentment of schooled intellectuals against their society whatever its nature, whether capitalist or communist. (Intellectuals are disproportionately opposed to capitalism as compared with other groups of similar socioeconomic status within capitalist society. It is another question whether they are disproportionately opposed as compared with the degree of opposition of intellectuals in other societies to those societies.) Clearly, then, data about the attitudes of intellectuals within communist countries toward apparatchiks would be relevant; will those intellectuals feel animus toward that system?

Our hypothesis needs to be refined so that it does not apply (or apply as strongly) to every society. Must the school systems in every society inevitably produce anti-societal animus in the intellectuals who do not receive that society’s highest rewards? Probably not. A capitalist society is peculiar in that it seems to announce that it is open and responsive only to talent, individual initiative, personal merit. Growing up in an inherited caste or feudal society creates no expectation that reward will or should be in accordance with personal value. Despite the created expectation, a capitalist society rewards people only insofar as they serve the market-expressed desires of others; it rewards in accordance with economic contribution, not in accordance with personal value. However, it comes close enough to rewarding in accordance with value–value and contribution will very often be intermingled–so as to nurture the expectation produced by the schools. The ethos of the wider society is close enough to that of the schools so that the nearness creates resentment. Capitalist societies reward individual accomplishment or announce they do, and so they leave the intellectual, who considers himself most accomplished, particularly bitter.

Another factor, I think, plays a role. Schools will tend to produce such anti-capitalist attitudes the more they are attended together by a diversity of people. When almost all of those who will be economically successful are attending separate schools, the intellectuals will not have acquired that attitude of being superior to them. But even if many children of the upper class attend separate schools, an open society will have other schools that also include many who will become economically successful as entrepreneurs, and the intellectuals later will resentfully remember how superior they were academically to their peers who advanced more richly and powerfully. The openness of the society has another consequence, as well. The pupils, future wordsmiths and others, will not know how they will fare in the future. They can hope for anything. A society closed to advancement destroys those hopes early. In an open capitalist society, the pupils are not resigned early to limits on their advancement and social mobility, the society seems to announce that the most capable and valuable will rise to the very top, their schools have already given the academically most gifted the message that they are most valuable and deserving of the greatest rewards, and later these very pupils with the highest encouragement and hopes see others of their peers, whom they know and saw to be less meritorious, rising higher than they themselves, taking the foremost rewards to which they themselves felt themselves entitled. Is it any wonder they bear that society an animus?

Some Further Hypotheses

We have refined the hypothesis somewhat. It is not simply formal schools but formal schooling in a specified social context that produces anti-capitalist animus in (wordsmith) intellectuals. No doubt, the hypothesis requires further refining. But enough. It is time to turn the hypothesis over to the social scientists, to take it from armchair speculations in the study and give it to those who will immerse themselves in more particular facts and data. We can point, however, to some areas where our hypothesis might yield testable consequences and predictions. First, one might predict that the more meritocratic a country’s school system, the more likely its intellectuals are to be on the left. (Consider France.) Second, those intellectuals who were “late bloomers” in school would not have developed the same sense of entitlement to the very highest rewards; therefore, a lower percentage of the late-bloomer intellectuals will be anti-capitalist than of the early bloomers. Third, we limited our hypothesis to those societies (unlike Indian caste society) where the successful student plausibly could expect further comparable success in the wider society. In Western society, women have not heretofore plausibly held such expectations, so we would not expect the female students who constituted part of the academic upper class yet later underwent downward mobility to show the same anti-capitalist animus as male intellectuals. We might predict, then, that the more a society is known to move toward equality in occupational opportunity between women and men, the more its female intellectuals will exhibit the same disproportionate anti-capitalism its male intellectuals show.

Some readers may doubt this explanation of the anti-capitalism of intellectuals. Be this as it may, I think that an important phenomenon has been identified. The sociological generalization we have stated is intuitively compelling; something like it must be true. Some important effect therefore must be produced in that portion of the school’s upper class that experiences downward social mobility, some antagonism to the wider society must get generated. If that effect is not the disproportionate opposition of the intellectuals, then what is it? We started with a puzzling phenomenon in need of an explanation. We have found, I think, an explanatory factor that (once stated) is so obvious that we must believe it explains some real phenomenon.

This article originally appeared in the January/February 1998 edition of Cato Policy Report.

Two bills have been introduced in the Texas state legislature, HB 1893 filed in the House, and SB 1164 in the Senate that would allow students who have a concealed carry license to carry on campus. This has stemmed from previous campus massacres and is thought to be one of the solutions to prevent such future massacres.

This is by far one of the best steps that the Texas state legislature could take in helping to prevent future murders by putting power back into the hands of responsible licensed concealed carrying citizens. This would go a long ways towards developing a system that is both preventative and allows citizens to defend themselves in such situations. I would feel safer knowing that there are training citizens around me that could fend off a crazed gunman if the situation were to present itself.

Currently there are two bills under consideration by the Texas Legislature, SB 1845 and its House version, HB 4277, which would require that all dogs and cats older than 6 months be spayed or neutered, with the exception of service animals and purebred pets that participate in competition. Failure to comply with the proposed law would be a Class C misdemeanor, which would be punishable by a fine of up to $500. However, a $300 fee can be paid to be exempt from this law.

Local animals clinics have been very supportive of this bill, and its no wonder why, as this just brings them in more business. There would be no surprise if animal clinics were the driving force behind this legislation, along with other people who seem to have no problem putting an unfair tax burden on people and infringing on their property rights. This is a personal decision to made by animal owners, and should not be mandated by the state government. What’s a bigger joke about this bill, is that it makes the state of Texas sound like the mafia, “Pay us off on the side here and we’ll let you slide.” This just has to make one wonder, who exactly is profiting from this venture here, as it is overly obvious this is a ploy for various people to make more money, rather than to improve the community.

This bill mostly seems to be targeting urban areas, but will effect all of Texas. Have these people even considered what this bill would do to people who live out in rural areas, especially those who operate ranches and farms? These people need a lot of cats to help keep snakes, mice, and rats away, which not only pose a threat to the equipment and feed they could tear up, but also to children who are playing outside. The cost, not just in money, would be entirely too high if this bill were to pass. It is highly doubtful that these people are considering the impact that this piece of “feel good” legislation will have on various people throughout Texas.

If the state of Texas is concerned about the population of cats and dogs, then they should create programs with local animal clinics around the state that will allow people to bring their animals in and have them spayed and neutered at a cheaper price. Mandating that people have their animals fixed is a severe infringement of property rights and is wrong. This is a personal decision to be made by each individual, not by the government.

Los Angeles Times – All right, tell me this doesn’t sound a little strange:

I’m sitting in Costa Mesa with a silver-haired gent who once ran for Congress as a Republican and used to lock up drug dealers as a federal prosecutor, a man who served as an Orange County judge for 25 years. And what are we talking about? He’s begging me to tell you we need to legalize drugs in America.

“Please quote me,” says Jim Gray, insisting the war on drugs is hopeless. “What we are doing has failed.”

As far as I can tell, Gray is not off his rocker. He’s not promoting drug use, he says for clarification. Anything but. If he had his way, half the revenue we would generate from taxing and regulating drugs would be plowed back into drug prevention education, and there’d be rehab on demand.

So here he is in coat and tie — with a U.S. flag lapel pin — eating his oatmeal and making perfect sense, even when talking about the way President Obama flippantly dismissed a question about legalizing marijuana last week during a White House news conference.

“Politicians get reelected talking tough regarding the war on drugs,” says Gray. “Do you want to hear the speech? Vote for Gray. I will put drug dealers in jail and save your children.”

I had gone to visit Gray in part to discuss his support for a bill introduced last month by Democratic San Francisco Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, who is calling for marijuana to be regulated and taxed much like alcohol.

Does the bill have a chance?

I wouldn’t bet a pack of Zig-Zag rolling paper. It’s a provocative idea that gets dusted off now and again, but the usual reaction is either ridicule or sober concern about sending the wrong message to youths, among others, and making substance abuse a greater problem than it already is.

But take a look at the world, people.

Mexican drug lords are better armed than police and killing thousands who don’t buy into the corruption, with the violence crashing our borders, and American enemies abroad are financed by the opium trade.

Ten days ago I visited a Los Angeles elementary school where students practice dropping to the floor and making themselves as flat as pancakes to avoid stray bullets from the gang-infested neighborhood, and drugs play a role in that violence. On Wednesday I strolled through downtown Los Angeles and marijuana smoke filled the air, a mocking reminder of the impossible task of eradicating drugs, despite the trillions spent and the thousands of people we’ve locked away in our jails and prisons.

Bravo to Hillary Rodham Clinton, says Gray, for admitting last week that American demand for drugs is responsible for the bloodshed in Mexico.

“But she got the facts right and the solution wrong,” he says, just as everyone else has in a war that’s been escalating for decades.

Gray was on the Municipal Court bench in the 1980s when he took his first hit from the reform pipe. The vast majority of the cases coming before him were alcohol-related, he said, and he was able to divert defendants into screening and recovery. But he couldn’t do the same in drug cases, and he was frustrated, both on the Municipal Court bench and later on the Superior Court bench.

“Our jails are filled with low-level users who sold to support the habit,” says Gray, who believes that the tougher the criminal justice system gets on drug offenders, the fewer resources it has to go after rapists, robbers and other criminals.

In 1992 he called a news conference in Santa Ana and stated his case for legalized drugs. In Orange County, that was like coming out in favor of communism and nose rings, but Gray never flinched from insisting that the drug war was a waste of tax dollars and that it was putting too many citizens and police in harm’s way. He became a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and wrote the book “Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It.” “His book drives a stake through the heart of the failed war on drugs,” says a back-cover blurb from Walter Cronkite.

Gray, by the way, is a former Peace Corps volunteer and Navy lawyer who now counts himself a Libertarian, all of which reminds us why we love California. He says his conservative roots make him the best man for the campaign to legalize drugs.

“Who better than a conservative judge in a conservative county who’s never used any form of illicit drugs?” he asks.

When Ammiano’s bill was introduced, Gray was invited to the news conference by the openly gay Democrat.

“I have received standing ovations from the ACLU and the Young Republicans of Orange County,” says Gray. “It crosses all political lines.”

Not everyone thinks he’s citizen of the year, though. Gray says he’s often asked about sending the wrong message, and he responds with a reality check. Anyone who wants illegal drugs can easily get them, but doing so may put them in harm’s way. Wouldn’t it be smarter to sell the drugs at government stores, so advertising could be outlawed, taxes collected on one of California’s biggest cash crops and drug gangs eradicated?

If Gray had his way, no one under 21 could buy drugs. But anyone older than that could legally buy marijuana — which, he says, causes nowhere near the amount of death and disease as alcohol. The state would need to see how that works, he said, before moving on to legalizing the sale of harder drugs. Sure, he says, legalization might lead to more toking at first, but he believes drug use would wane when it’s no longer forbidden and the novelty wears off.

I’m not sure I agree, but I do buy into Gray’s argument about who the winners are in the current system.

First, there are the drug lords in Mexico and beyond. Then the drug gangs that peddle the stuff here. Next come the law enforcement agencies, prison contractors and prison guards, which use the war on drugs to demand more resources. And finally, there are the politicians who have wooed voters since the Nixon administration by pledging to support the war on drugs.

“My personal opinion,” says Gray, “is that we couldn’t have done worse if we tried.”

ALBANY, N.Y. — The New York State Board of Elections voted Wednesday to remove Libertarian congressional candidate Eric Sundwall from the ballot in the March 31 special election to fill the vacant 20th congressional district seat, citing a technicality that voided many of Sundwall’s ballot access petition signatures.

The Sundwall campaign will not pursue legal efforts to remain on the ballot.  Campaign manager Richard Cooper issued the following statement:

“Instead of campaigning, we have been forced to have Eric Sundwall spend time and money in court.  We will not continue legal efforts to remain on the ballot.  We are dismayed that the people of the 20th Congressional District will not have the opportunity to vote for Eric Sundwall due to a technicality that hinges on what town or city the voter or witness lives in as opposed to their community of residence.”

According to the Albany Times Union, the petitions were not technically correct because many voters listed their mailing address instead of their town, for example.  Sundwall needed 3,500 valid signatures to gain a spot on the ballot next Tuesday. The Times Union reports he collected 6,730, but the ruling today leaves him short by 556.

Douglas Kellner, co-chairman of the Board of Elections, told the Poughkeepsie Journal the issue was purely a legal matter. “I think some of us actually agree with you that it’s not fair … when legitimate voters are knocked out because of legal technicalities,” he said.

Board member Evelyn Aquila said it is time to change the laws.

“I’ve always felt if you receive mail at the address (used on the petition) it should be good enough for us,” Aquila told the Times Union. “I will vote the way I’m supposed to, but it is time to correct this.”

Military personnel registered to vote in the district have already received ballots with Sundwall’s name.  Their votes for Sundwall will be voided and they will not be allowed to vote again.

http://www.lp.org/news/press-releases/voters-get-no-choice-as-sundwall-removed-from-ballot-on-technicality

A 14 year old girl from New Jersey has been charged with possessing and distributing child pornography after she posted 30 nude pictures of herself on myspace. She was arrested by police who questioned her, and told them that she wanted her boyfriend to see the pictures. She was released back to her mother and could face up to 17 years in prison if convicted of distribution of child pornography. She will also have to register as a sex offender if convicted.

Clearly we should have a separate set of laws for juveniles for cases such as this. There is absolutely no reason to send this girl to jail or have her register as a sex offender. She obviously didn’t understand the problems with what she had done. However I don’t believe that they should just cut her loose either. She should be put on probation and banned from unmonitored internet use for a year. This would be a much more just sentence than sending her to jail and ruining her life for a dumb and relatively harmless mistake she made at 14.

A news article on the story can be found here

DALLAS — Racing to see his dying mother-in-law at a Plano hospital, an NFL player found himself delayed by a Dallas officer as her life ebbed away. It’s a story that has sparked outrage across North Texas and generated interest around the country.

With his wife and another woman in the car, Ryan Moats — a running back for the Houston Texans — sped his car toward Baylor Regional Medical Center of Plano in the early morning hours of March 17. But when the Moats arrived at emergency room parking lot, they were stopped by Officer Robert Powell, who drew his service revolver on the concerned family members.

Dashcam video from the Dallas officer’s patrol car captured the incident.

“Get in there,” Officer Powell yelled out to Tamishia Moats, Ryan’s wife, as she exited the car. “Let me see your hands. Get in there. Put your hands on the car.”

“Excuse me; my mom is dying,” Tamisha Moats replied.

She and the other woman ignored Officer Powell’s commands and rushed inside the hospital to her dying mother as Ryan Moats and Officer Powell went back-and-forth over insurance paperwork the NFL player was unable to locate.

MOATS: “I’ve got seconds before she’s gone, man.”

POWELL: “Listen: If I can’t verify you have insurance…”

MOATS: “My mother-in-law is dying!”

POWELL: “Listen to me.”

MOATS: “Right now, you’re wasting my time.”

POWELL: “If you can’t verify you have insurance, I’m going to tow your car. So, you either find it or I am going to tow the car.”

As they argued, the officer got irritated.

POWELL: “Shut your mouth. Shut your mouth. You can either settle down and cooperate, or I can just take you to jail for running a red light.”

In a telephone interview, Moats said the clash with the officer was totally unexpected. “For him to not even be sympathetic at all, and basically we’re dogs or something and we don’t matter — it basically shocked me,” he said.

No compassion was indicated in the police recording of the incident. “I can screw you over,” Officer Powell said. “I would rather not do that. You obviously will dictate everything that happens; and right now, your attitude sucks.”

The hospital twice sent nurses to try and get the officer to release Moats.

“We’re blue-coding her for the third time,” a nurse said on the police videotape.

A Plano police officer stopped to make a plea for the officer to let Moats go. “Hey, that’s the nurse,” the Plano officer said. “She says the mom is dying right now, and she wants to know if I can get him up there.”

Finally, after a 20-minute delay, the officer ticketed Moats for running a red light.

By the time Moats made it up to the emergency room, his mother-in-law was dead.

“I went up after she passed and held her hand, but she was already gone,” Moats said in a telephone interview.

Dallas police have apologized to the Moats family, dropped the ticket, and launched a review of the incident.

“When it came to our attention, we immediately called for an internal investigation to be done,” said police spokesman Lt. Andy Havey.

WFAA.com has received more than 400 comments about the incident since the story first aired on Channel 8 Wednesday night.

Under Armour Chief Executive Officer Kevin Plank took home a base salary of just $26,000 last year after the Baltimore-based sports apparel company he founded did not meet revenue goals.

Plank voluntarily cut his salary from $500,000 to $26,000 last year, saying he thought he should be paid based on the performance of the company, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission last week.

Plank was still eligible for a bonus of as much as $1.47 million, but the company had to meet revenues of at least $775 million for the year. Like most companies, Under Armour was hurt by the recession and a slowdown in consumer spending. While the company’s revenues rose 19.7 percent last year to $725.2 million, the figures didn’t reach the company’s goals.

No Under Armour executive received performance bonuses last year, although Suzanne J. Karkus, senior vice president of apparel, and David McCreight, the company’s president, received signing bonuses and other guaranteed bonuses promised when they were hired by the company.

The $26,000 was the same salary Plank made when he started Under Armour in 1996.

In 2007, Plank earned more than $1.5 million including his $500,000 salary and a $1 million bonus.

Plank has also proposed no salary increases for certain executive officers this year as “an effort to control expenses and manage our business more conservatively in the current economic environment,” according to SEC documents.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-bz.underarmour24mar24,0,4345146.story 

With booming deficits and expected budget shortfalls projected in the trillions, congress has managed to dig up yet another expensive program that puts even further strain on our budgets, and is quite frankly a program that congress has no business establishing. The United States Public Service Academy, located at http://www.uspublicserviceacademy.org/ proposes a plan to build a federally supported academy similar to the military academies that are already in service, to train and equip future public service leaders.

How much does this plan cost? Over six years the total would come out to 984 million dollars as described in the senate bill http://www.uspublicserviceacademy.org/S960.pdf supporting the program. The requirements of students who are accepted to the program must serve five years of public service upon graduation of the academy, with their tuition being free as long as they complete their public service. While this sounds great and all, we cannot afford such a program, and such an institution would be a misuse of federal power due to the massive expansion of government into what should be a private sector program.

The best public service leaders come from a source where independent minds prevail and people are allowed to maintain their own lifestyles and freedom of choice. With this program, each student is subject to rigorous schedules and must adhere to and embrace the academy’s mission, though that mission is never clearly stated. This gives the government room to instill in these people any perception or thought process that they wish, which is clearly not good for individual thought development. We need strong and independent minded leaders in this country, and allowing our federal government to establish such a program would deeply undermine the independent thought process. The best people are not trained by the state, but the private sector.

Our government has already been expanded too far, and this program only puts them another step out of their boundaries. We cannot afford such a program, whether it be by cost, or loss of the independent minded civil service leader. Say no to the congressional overreach of power and to the money hole that they plan to create.

El Paso, TX — On Tuesday the El Paso City Council voted, 4-4, to sustain the mayor’s veto of a resolution calling for a national debate on drug legalization as a solution to the cartel violence problem plaguing sister city Cuidad Juarez, just across the Mexico border.

Three of the four council members voting to uphold the mayor’s silencing of the discussion said on the record during council deliberations that they did so only because Congressman Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) and the city’s state legislative delegation sent letters raising the possibility that El Paso would lose federal and state money should it continue insisting that legalization is a debatable solution to illegal drug trade violence.

Councilman Beto O’Rourke, who championed the legalization debate resolution, said it is “a sad day in America when you’re threatened if you want to have an open and honest debate about an issue that affects your community.”

Rep. Reyes, who sent his deputy chief of staff to testify at Tuesday’s council meeting, also canceled a scheduled breakfast with O’Rourke on Monday, instead meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who successfully requested $1.4 billion in U.S. anti-drug aid in 2008, and who also met with President-elect Barack Obama on Monday.

“This level intervention in quashing a spirited debate about a serious policy conundrum is chilling,” said Terry Nelson, a 30-year veteran federal anti-drug agent and a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a 10,000-member organization representing police, prosecutors, judges and others who fought on the front lines of the “war on drugs” and now support legalization and regulation. “With so many killings and kidnappings by the illegal drug cartels, we just can’t afford to keep avoiding an important discussion about the failures of our decades-long ‘war on drugs.’ We’re looking forward to seeing U.S. Sen. Jim Webb’s recently announced blue ribbon commission on high incarceration rates taking a good, hard look at why so many nonviolent drug offenders fill our prisons.”

Rep. Reyes and state legislators haven’t yet detailed the specifics of any funding threats against El Paso they’ve been warned about or from where they came. The states legislators’ and congressman’s letter are online at http://www.elpasotexas.gov/muni_clerk/agenda/01-13-09/011309ADD2B1.pdf and http://www.elpasotexas.gov/muni_clerk/agenda/01-13-09/011309ADD2B2.pdf respectively.

Six votes were needed to override the mayor’s veto of the resolution calling for the national debate to continue.

For more information, please visit http://www.CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com or contact Tom Angell at (202) 557-4979 or media@leap.cc.

http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=76 

SEATTLE, WA — A Mountlake Terrace police sergeant who was fired after publicly criticizing the “war on drugs” has reached an $812,500 settlement in a lawsuit he filed against the city and police department, among others. Under the settlement, Sergeant Jonathan Wender has been reinstated on the force and is eligible to receive back pay and full retirement benefits.

“In an open society, people on the front lines of the criminal justice system have an ethical duty to speak out on controversial social and legal issues that affect the public we serve,” said Sgt. Wender, a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), a 10,000-strong organization representing police, prosecutors, judges and others who fought on the front lines of the “war on drugs” and who now want to legalize and regulate drugs. “The public has a fundamental right to know which laws and policies are effective, and which ones aren’t; and they should expect that their police officers will speak the truth even when it isn’t popular or comfortable to do so. I hope that the outcome of this case will help reassure police and other public officials that they can speak freely on controversial topics such as the urgent need to seek better ways to deal with the crisis of drugs that plagues American society.”

Sgt. Wender joined the police force in 1990 after graduating from college and was terminated in 2005. He holds a Pd.D. from Simon Fraser University and is currently a full-time sociology professor at the University of Washington. As part of the settlement, Sgt. Wender is back on the payroll at the Mountlake Terrace Police Department, where he will serve on administrative leave until he retires from the force on November 10, 2010 and can then qualify for his full pension.

“Jonathan Wender’s victory is ours, as well. As was his fight,” said Norm Stamper, the retired Seattle police chief and LEAP member. “Because of this fine man’s courage and perseverance, and his willingness to tell the truth about the ‘drug war,’ we’ve all moved closer to putting an end to that war. I believe police officers across the country will be moved by Jonathan’s example, and will raise their voices in support of LEAP’s goal of ending drug prohibition.”

The lawsuit was filed against the Snohomish County Prosecutor’s Office, the Mountlake Terrace Police Department, the City of Mountlake Terrace, the City of Lynnwood, and a handful of individual defendants.

For more information about LEAP, please contact Tom Angell at (202) 557-4979 or media@leap.cc

http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=75 

(CNN) — The Vermont Senate voted overwhelmingly Monday to legalize
same-sex marriage, potentially setting the stage for a high-profile legislative
showdown and breaking a new political barrier in the state that made history in
2000 by becoming the first to approve civil unions for gay and lesbian couples.If the bill becomes law, Vermont will become the first state to legalize
same-sex marriage without being forced to do so by the courts.

The bill, which passed the 30-member chamber by a 26-4 margin, moves to
the Vermont House, where it is also expected to be approved. Republican Gov.
Jim Douglas, however, has said that he doesn’t support the bill.

“Governor Douglas agrees with President Obama that marriage is between a
man and a woman. He supports Vermont’s current civil union law, which provides
equal rights, benefits, and responsibilities to Vermonters in civil unions,”
Douglas spokeswoman Dennise Casey said.

He also “believes this bill is a distraction from the important work the
legislature needs to do to pass a responsible budget and get our economy going
again,” Casey added.

It is unclear whether both chambers of the state legislature would vote
to override a potential gubernatorial veto.

Fox News – If you’re an anti-abortion activist, or if you display political paraphernalia supporting a third-party candidate or a certain Republican member of Congress, if you possess subversive literature, you very well might be a member of a domestic paramilitary group.That’s according to “The Modern Militia Movement,” a report by the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC), a government collective that identifies the warning signs of potential domestic terrorists for law enforcement communities.

“Due to the current economical and political situation, a lush environment for militia activity has been created,” the Feb. 20 report reads. “Unemployment rates are high, as well as costs of living expenses. Additionally, President Elect Barrack [sic] Obama is seen as tight on gun control and many extremists fear that he will enact firearms confiscations.”

MIAC is one of 58 so-called “fusion centers” nationwide that were created by the Department of Homeland Security, in part, to collect local intelligence that authorities can use to combat terrorism and related criminal activities. More than $254 million from fiscal years 2004-2007 went to state and local governments to support the fusion centers, according to the DHS Web site.

During a press conference last week in Kansas City, Mo., DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano called fusion centers the “centerpiece of state, local, federal intelligence-sharing” in the future.

“Let us not forget the reason we are here, the reason we have the Department of Homeland Security and the reason we now have fusion centers, which is a relatively new concept, is because we did not have the capacity as a country to connect the dots on isolated bits of intelligence prior to 9/11,” Napolitano said, according to a DHS transcript.

“That’s why we started this…. Now we know that it’s not just the 9/11-type incidents but many, many other types of incidents that we can benefit from having fusion centers that share information and product and analysis upwards and horizontally.”

But some say the fusion centers are going too far in whom they identify as potential threats to American security.

People who supported former third-party presidential candidates like Texas Rep. Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin and former Georgia Rep. Bob Barr are cited in the report, in addition to anti-abortion activists and conspiracy theorists who believe the United States, Mexico and Canada will someday form a North American Union.

“Militia members most commonly associate with 3rd party political groups,” the report reads. “It is not uncommon for militia members to display Constitutional Party, Campaign for Liberty or Libertarian material.”

Other potential signals of militia involvement, according to the report, are possession of the Gagsden “Don’t Tread on Me” flag or the widely available anti-income tax film “America: Freedom to Fascism.”

Barr, the 2008 Libertarian Party presidential nominee, told FOXNews.com that he’s taking steps to get his name removed from the report, which he said could actually “dilute the effectiveness” of law enforcement agencies.

“It can subject people to unwarranted and inappropriate monitoring by the government,” he said. “If I were the governor of Missouri, I’d be concerned that law enforcement agencies are wasting their time and effort on such nonsense.”

Barr said his office has received “several dozen” complaints related to the report.

Mary Starrett, communications director for the Constitution Party, said Baldwin, the party’s 2008 presidential candidate, was “outraged” that his name was included in the report.

“We were so astounded by it we couldn’t believe it was real,” Starrett told FOXNews.com. “It’s painting such a large number of people with a broad brush in a dangerous light.”

Michael German, national security policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said the report “crosses the line” and shows a disregard for civil liberties.

“It seems to implicate people who are engaging in First Amendment protected activities and suggest that something as innocuous as supporting a political candidate for office would mean that you’re harboring some ill-intent,” German told FOXNews.com. “It’s completely inappropriate.”

German, who claims the number of fusion centers nationwide is closer to 70, said the centers present several troubling concerns, including their excessive secrecy, ambiguous lines of authority, the use of data mining and military participation.

“No two are alike,” German said. “And these things are expanding rapidly.”

But MIAC officials defended their report, saying it’s not a basis for officers to take enforcement action.

“These reports sometimes mention groups or individuals who are not the subject of the document, but may be relevant to describing tendencies or trends concerning the subject of the document,” MIAC said in a statement.

“For example, a criminal group may use a particular wire service to transfer funds, but the mention of that wire service does not imply that it is part of that group, or a criminal enterprise.

Nor does it imply that all individuals who use that service are engaged in criminal activity.”
The statement continues, “We are concerned about the mischaracterizations of a document following its recent unauthorized release and we regret that any citizens were unintentionally offended by the content of the document.”

Donny Ferguson, a spokesman for the Libertarian Party, said he was concerned by the report’s “poor choice of words,” among other things.

“Unfortunately it is so broadly worded it could be interpreted as saying millions of peaceful, law-abiding Americans are involved in dangerous activities. These mistakes happen and we hope Missouri officials will correct the report,” Ferguson wrote in an e-mail. “The Libertarian Party promotes the common-sense policies of fiscal responsibility and social tolerance. We are the only party in America who makes opposition to initiating violence a condition of membership.”

Bob McCarty, a St. Louis resident who blogged about the MIAC report, said he’s afraid he may be targeted, since he’s previously sold Ron Paul-related merchandise.

“[The report] described me, so maybe I need to get a gun and build a shack out in the woods,” McCarty said facetiously. “It’s certainly an attempt to stifle political thought, especially in Missouri. It definitely makes me pause, if nothing else. Maybe Missouri is just a test bed for squelching political thought.”

ACLU officials blasted a Texas fusion center last month for distributing a “Prevention Awareness Bulletin” that called on law enforcement officers to report activities of local lobbying groups, Muslim civil rights organizations and anti-war protest groups.

Fox News – Angelo Monderoy, 18, and Matthew Cooper, 17, allegedly broke into a vacant apartment in Brooklyn, N.Y., on or around Oct. 7, 2008. Kings County District Attorney Charles J. Hynes said the pair held the cat down as they poured charcoal lighter fluid on it.Hynes said they then set the animal on fire, causing deep wounds and fourth-degree burns. The blaze also damaged the building, which has other units that are occupied.

The cat was found outside, unable to move and crying but still alive, the district attorney said.

It was euthanized at a local animal hospital.

The ASPCA launched an extensive investigation leading to the capture of Monderoy and Cooper, who were indicted this week in Brooklyn, according to the district attorney.

They face charges of second-degree arson, second-degree burglary and aggravated animal cruelty and could spend up to 25 years in prison if convicted.

Cooper also was recently charged with burglary and assault in an unrelated incident in the same building in which he and another defendant are charged with breaking into an apartment and beating the sleeping tenant with a cane while they demanded money.

—————————————————————————————————————————-

These are dispicable acts and I hope they receive a lengthy and costly sentence, however 25 years seems like a little too much for the crime. I would support 10 years in prison and 10 years probation. People like this need some lengthy time to themselves to contemplate what they’ve done. Truly a horrible situation. Mathew Cooper especially should receive very little leniency.

The Pope and Nancy Pelosi are on the same stage in front of a huge
crowd.

The speaker and His Holiness, however, have seen it all before. To
make it a little more interesting, the speaker says to the Pope,
“Did You know that with just one little wave of my hand I can make
every Democrat in the crowd go wild?”

He doubts it, so she shows him. Sure enough, the wave elicits
rapture and cheering from every democrat in the crowd. Gradually,
the cheering subsides.

The Pope, not wanting to be out done by such a level of arrogance,
considers what he could do.

“That was impressive, the Pope says, “But did you know that with
just one little wave of MY hand I can make EVERY person in the crowd
go crazy with joy? This joy will not be a momentary display like
that of your subjects, but will go deep into their hearts, and they
will forever speak of this day and rejoice.”

The speaker seriously doubts this, and says so. “One little wave of
your hand and all people will rejoice forever? Show me.”

So the Pope slapped her.

-Author Unknown