Some people think I’m cynical about civil government,

but they’re wrong.

For instance, it never occurred to me in my wildest dystopian dream that I would ever read the following defense of government action, outside of a libertarian novel:

“No court,” said Solicitor General Paul Clement in his brief, has “ever recognized a constitutional right against retaliation . . . in the context of property rights.”

In other words, if the government asks you to do something you have the perfect legal right to refuse to do, and they proceed to harrass you and use their powers to punish you for your decision (including, in this case, bringing you to court on false charges), then they have done nothing wrong. Sure, we all know it is evil to retaliate against, say, a political activist for articulating views that the government opposes. But property rights, aren’t really protected. The First Amendment matters; the Fifth is dispensible.
From listening to the podcast, it seems as if some Supreme Court Justices are seriously committed to the idea that while they will defend the rights of the KKK and pornographers to be free to recruit children or whatever else seems progressive to do these days, if you want to keep and control your property you are in danger of destroying the foundations of society.

Listen to the interview and read the Legal Times piece.

One thought on “Some people think I’m cynical about civil government,

  1. pduggie

    Interesting.

    The national wildlife federations’s argument in the brief seems to be that the ‘retaliation’ consist of acts which are legal, therefore, are not proscribed for agents of the Govt to do. Extortion defined as illegal acts, and not the motives for the legal acts.

    (at first, i misread the NWLF’s brief as clement’s so I thought this comment was more notewothy than it is :))

    Reply

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