Gladly, No Prison for Ed Rosenthal

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Thu, 05 Jun 2003 12:00:00 GMT
Jack W. Boone - Smoking - sure smoking is bad, but mandating non-smoking helps only one class of, er..., people: lawyers.

I really liked A Lodging of Wayfaring Men. Reality spoken here. The heroes of the book create a private free market in cyberspace, protected by encryption. No taxes or government regulation of any kind. And the powers that be, especially the Church, do everything they can to stop them. Farber's First Essay is by James Farber, one of the star characters. In the story it is printed as a full-page newspaper advertisement.

The book's title is a Bible quote. Phillip, the protagonist, is a Bible scholar, who, in his youth took the Jesus story seriously and decided to work at actually doing what Jesus did. He had some success at healing the sick, even experienced a cripple get up and walk. But he did all this without the mysticism that normally surrounds religion. His search was for reality, not blindly following some religious leader. He works hard at not allowing anyone to be his disciple. He wants fellow masters of reality, not followers.

The book also presents an unconventional perspective on sex and marriage that will likely bother the religious conservatives, even though it is more in line with the truth than conventional sexual morality.

Did You Know? - a list of uncommon uses of common household materials. Received from a friend. Don't know if any of it is true, but it's likely worth experimenting to find out.

Calvin Woodward and Siobhan McDonough of AP via the Albany (NY) Times Union - Sex, lies and the White House years - This appeared on the front page yesterday, above the fold, along with a picture of the cover of Hitlary's new book. Free advertisement for the communist senator conveniently pretending to be from New York.

Ron Paul at LewRockwell.com - The Partial Birth Abortion Ban - Speech given yesterday in the House of Representatives. Dr. Paul votes for the partial birth abortion ban, but with grave reservations about its constitutionality. [lew]

The best solution, of course, is not now available to us. That would be a Supreme Court that recognizes that for all criminal laws, the several states retain jurisdiction. Something that Congress can do is remove the issue from the jurisdiction of the lower federal courts, so that states can deal with the problems surrounding abortion, thus helping to reverse some of the impact of Roe v. Wade.

Unfortunately, H.R. 760 takes a different approach, one that is not only constitutionally flawed, but flawed in principle, as well. Though I will vote to ban the horrible partial-birth abortion procedure, I fear that the language used in this bill does not further the pro-life cause, but rather cements fallacious principles into both our culture and legal system.

...

Despite its severe flaws, this bill nonetheless has the possibility of saving innocent human life, and I will vote in favor of it. I fear, though, that when the pro-life community uses the arguments of the opposing side to advance its agenda, it does more harm than good.

Henrietta Bowman at Sierra Times - Justice still not served - Ed Rosenthal was sentenced to one day already served, fined $1300, and put on supervised release for three years. The judge decided that Mr. Rosenthal reasonably believed that it was legal to grow marijuana for medical use in a state which has explicitly legalized that behavior. Good outcome, but for the wrong reasons. [sierra]

While Rosenthal got off lightly by fed standards, due to outrage by "We, the People", there are two very important legal issues that were not addressed in the Rosenthal case. The primary one is that there is absolutely nothing in the Constitution that bestows upon Congress the authority to regulate what we put in our bodies other than the much abused commerce clause.

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