Randy Barnett Quotations

Given her lack of (judicial) experience, does anyone doubt that Ms. Miers' only qualification to be a Supreme Court justice is her close connection to the president?

deferred to Congress, the executive and to legal precedent - in some unspecified mix.

It seems perfectly reasonable for the president to want members of the executive branch to be loyal to him and to follow his directions rather than those of the bureaucracies they lead. They will leave their positions when the president leaves. Making a lifetime appointment of a friend to the Supreme Court is a whole different matter.

Given her lack of experience, does anyone doubt that Ms. Miers's only qualification to be a Supreme Court justice is her close connection to the president? Would the president have ever picked her if she had not been his lawyer, his close confidante, and his adviser?

Every dollar spent to punish a drug user or seller is a dollar that cannot be spent collecting restitution from a robber. Every hour spent investigating a drug user or seller is an hour that could have been used to find a missing child. Every trial held to prosecute a drug user or seller is court time that could be used to prosecute a rapist in a case that might otherwise have been plea bargained.

Every hour spent investigating a drug user or seller is an hour that could have been used to find a missing child.

I typically don't use the distinction 'positive' and 'negative' liberty, because negative sounds bad and positive sounds good, and I don't think that the terminology ought to prejudice us one way or the other. So I think the more descriptive term is 'liberty rights' versus 'welfare rights'. So, liberty rights are freedom-of-action type rights, and welfare rights are rights-to-stuff, of various kinds...And, property rights are not rights-to-stuff. I think that's one of the key misunderstandings about property. Property rights are the rights to liberty within your jurisdiction.