Quote of the Day: Anti-Federalist Edition

When the public is called to investigate and decide upon a question in which not only the present members of the community are deeply interested, but upon which the happiness and misery of generations yet unborn is in great measure suspended, the benevolent mind cannot help feeling itself peculiarly interested in the result. That’s the [...]

Brutus on the Optimal Size of Nations

In a republic, the manners, sentiments, and interests of the people should be similar. If this be not the case, there will be a constant clashing of opinions; and the representatives of one part will be continually striving against those of the other. This will retard the operations of government, and prevent such conclusions as [...]

Constitutional Dilemmas: The Push for Proportional Representation

Luke Malpass of the Centre for Independent Studies gives an interesting talk (based on a forthcoming paper) on proportional representation and the possibility of bicameralism in New Zealand. In my view, bicameralism is the best constitutional reform for New Zealand which has much hope of succeeding. I’m not sure why it isn’t more of a [...]

Behind the Moral Curtain

I’m slow in posting this video of Elise Parham presenting her monograph Behind the Moral Curtain: The Politics of a Charter of Rights. The paper and video are both well worth checking out. Astute viewers may even be able to spot the back of my head in the video. Elise’s argument is that bills of [...]

Miscellaneous Links

My Apologies for the lack of posting. In penance, I offer you some links of a Public Choicey nature: Eric Crampton quotes Buchanan on meddlesome preferences. He is a smart guy, but likes constitutions a little too much. Radley Balko points out that Mattel have taken their rent-seeking to the next level. I don’t approve, [...]

Minority Rights are Anti-Democratic

Robert Dahl knows his democratic theory, so we should take notice when he argues that the protection of minority interests conflicts with democratic ideals. Writing in 1957 [gated], he says: One problem, which is essentially ideological in character, is the difficulty of reconciling such an interpretation [of the US Supreme Court as protecting minorities] with the existence [...]

Hobbesian Government

In Federalist 51, James Madison puts the problems of the tyranny of the majority and the rent-seeking in an interesting way: In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the [...]

Nazi Parents and the State

Janet Keeping writes in the Western Standard: The Manitoba government is seeking permanent custody of a brother and sister already in care. What’s wrong with the parents? Media reports have mentioned possible drug and alcohol abuse. But if press coverage is accurate, the main issue is that the parents have been teaching their children to [...]

Parental Sovereignty and the Reason of Rules

Roger Pilon at Cato@Liberty is rightly troubled by the case of the parents of a 13 year-old refusing to have his cancer treated, and argues that the state is right to intervene. The presumption is with parents, but it is not irrebuttable. Just as the state may interfere in family matters in the case of [...]

Quote of the Day: Worst-Case Political Economy Edition

There is one final observation to be made. Homo economicus by no means represents the worst imaginable character for the social drama. The natural monopolist whose predilection towards the ‘ small is beautiful’ philosophy leads him to produce less output than would be profit-maximising inflicts yet larger marginal losses on the community than his rapacious [...]