Wow. Excellent mini-essay, Stephen. Especially as I sit here in Montana (Montana, of all states...) and wonder how on earth my fellow Big Sky residents enacted legislation to prohibit me from smoking in a restaurant or bar.

Given a leftwing dictator, the results would be much the same, only more urbanized.

ITYM right-wing. ;-)

Feel free to nuke this comment. Suffice it to say I am in general agreement.

Here! Here!
The Mercatus Center at George mason University releases a study every year or so detailing the increasing economic cost of regulations. I cited it heavily in my book.

Each little reg is another Lilliputian rope holding down the US economy and individual freedom. Each litte reg is another step down the road to serfdom, to steal a phrase.

Actually, given Alito's now famous "unitary executive" beliefs, regulatory relief of the sort that Bovard calls for is one area in which he might turn out to be something of an ally.

The only hope, as you say, is for the economy to grow faster than the state, reducing government to a footnote in a few decades. If the government budget (all levels) can be reduced to less than 10 percent of GDP, even if it's still growing in real terms, we may have a chance at freedom. I'm actually quite optimistic this may happen, if immigration and the idiotic drug war can be brought under control.

I've always belived the 9th and 10th amendments need to be revised - add the words "No, really, we mean it." to the end.

After the Raich decision (and Kelo) ISTM that that soft-dictatorship scheme is more and more becoming a reality. did anyone ask Alito if he thought there was anything left of federalism post Raich?

Ah, but the tyranny of the majority is A-OK with most of us. That's always been the real and actual danger here. Our Wars on Vice prove this point.

Its easy to complain about horrible executive power is generally, but without any particular unacceptable actions Alito has favored, I find your piece quite un-convincing. What REALLY is the difference between a warrant allowing 'spying' and the executive dept 'spying' on average Americans? Efficiency is the ONLY thing I can think of. You have a limited number of people making the decision to spy in both cases. What about a judge making that decision completely validates the invasion of privacy? How can one be completely subject to scrutiny and the other be unquestionable? I really can't understand your problem. And until I hear.. from ANY of you Libertarians, a better, more consistant/workable means to keep the country safe, I'll stay behind Bush on this one.

I think you get the Left wrong on the whole revolution business: they don't own guns, they own puppets.

So, they'd march and chant and maybe riot a little, but that'd be about it.

Just like 1968. They are too limp-wristed to put up a real fight.

"If things got worse, it wouldn't take long before the wackos were joined by their center-right comrades. The only difference between them would be the price of their guns."

Not to mention skills, those far right wackos know how to shoot. I doubt the guys in the center would spend a few thousand on guns and training with this weapons.

Well said, Thank you

The true threat to our liberty comes from local and state governments, not the federal government.

The city council that controls land use and permits, the county commissioners who set up new taxing districts, and the state legislature always seeing problem before it exists and passing dumb laws to protect "the children".

True believers in liberty should not let the local tyrants get away with this. This is one case where "think globally, act locally" really is appropriate.

I will worry about executive tyranny when Bush suspends habeus corpus like that horrible dictator Abraham Lincoln.

Concur with local governments, school boards, and bureaucracies at every level being the real threat.

"If things got worse, it wouldn't take long before the wackos were joined by their center-right comrades. The only difference between them would be the price of their guns."

So which group has the more expensive guns? The wackos who spend a high percentage of their income on such toys, or the center-right who generally have much higher amounts of disposable income to spend? Just trying to see where I fit in.

We don't put up with tyrants, but we have no problem with tyranny.

Got it.

I think I'll go have a goddamned drink, now.

I hate all dictators.

But I don't hate authority, justly constituted with the consent of the governed (or regulated by other means and under democratic overall control, such as the authority of military commanders over their subordinates).

The difference between authority and tyranny should be explicated, not elided.

(Re. the footnote)

The revolution isn't quite complete. W will likely get to appoint one more and next time he will swap an uber-liberal for a conservative. THEN, all civil rights will cease and we will be required to have brain wave transmitters implanted that will communicate our thoughts to the NSA. No warrants required.

The upshoot of all of this is that liberals will become advocates of the 2nd Amendment and will arm themselves like crazy to protect what little freedom they have left.

Have you ever heard the analogy of how to boil a frog? The key is to gradually make the water just a little bit hotter, and a little bit hotter... If you bring it to a rapid boil, the frog jumps out. But by being gradual, you lull the frog into complacency.

This is what I fear will happen here in America. Freedoms and rights will be gradually whittled down, just to avoid the uprising you talk about.

Yes, sure we torture guys - but only the really bad ones, and they deserve it anyway. Yes, we read your emails, but unless you are talking to Al Quaida, you have nothing to worry about. Yes, we screen your phone calls, but we don't *really* listen unless you say enough bad words.

So many of our current policies are tolerable as they are now, but very VERY easily can (and inevitably will) grow and be abused.

The problem with our famous line about the "consent of the governed" is that it is actually a synonym for majority rule, which in turn means bullying the unpopular without their consent.

The Greeks gave us reason, a blessing, and rhetoric, a curse. We jettisoned the blessing and wield the curse without mercy.

Have you ever heard the analogy of how to boil a frog? The key is to gradually make the water just a little bit hotter, and a little bit hotter... If you bring it to a rapid boil, the frog jumps out. But by being gradual, you lull the frog into complacency.

Oddly enough, thats also a myth.

Gee, when I set the wayback machine for '68, I made a couple stops along the way. Mistake. Hadda listen to the continent-spanning whinge after the New York Construction Worker Riots, and when I checked out the marches in '70, they abruptly got a lot smaller for some reason.

I think you get the Left wrong on the whole revolution business: they don't own guns, they own puppets.

So, they'd march and chant and maybe riot a little, but that'd be about it.

Just like 1968. They are too limp-wristed to put up a real fight.

Don't discount the effects of so-called "peaceful protest". I was a little whipper-snapper in 1968, but it seems to me that the left-wingers still managed to get their way, even if it was with marches and chants and riots. They crippled Newark, NJ; Detroit, and LA with their "little riots". Remember the Black Panthers? They were well-armed.

We're about to get a new Supreme Court justice who never knows when to say no to executive power.

Is there any factual basis for this claim? Just curious.

MG2: Don't discount the effects of so-called "peaceful protest". I was a little whipper-snapper in 1968, but it seems to me that the left-wingers still managed to get their way, even if it was with marches and chants and riots.

Or was it with Cronkites and New York Times et alia? Methinks the latter had a bit more influence.

The greatest evil on earth is bureaucracy. The specific individuals aren't evil but the cumulative results can be. Thousands, no millions, of technocrats each working to accomplish their little bit of mandate. No one watching the whole as they focus on their piece. They are unstoppable as well, surviving through whomever is the political power of the moment. It is telling that even in the Iranian revolution, the bureaucracy endured throughout. Simply adapting to facilitate the new regime.

Also, is it me or are users of pubic transportation, second class citizens these days? Fined for eating, fined for providing a token as cost, having to present id because they route the bus through a federal complex? All considered a good ideas when turned over to the bureaucracy for imposition. The only way to maintain full citizenship is to not place yourself under the thumb of the transit authority.

For everyone going on about how the Right has the guns and the skills and all that, I'd politely remind y'all that much the same was said in these parts just before the War of Yankee Agression. They may be stinking hippies and what-not, but they are still Americans. Not that I'd bet on the Left in a shooting war, but I wouldn't plan on it being a cakewalk either.

Also, you should also not fall into the Left's trap of thiinking the Right is a monobloc. I've voted Republican my whole adult life. Drawing any conclusions about my personal life from that will leave you very confused should you ever meet me. I vote the 'pubbies on the National level due to foriegn policy & the 2nd Amendment, and on the Local level as they're less of a threat to my civil rights than the Donks, and much less corrupt than the local ones as well. There's a number of issues that would have this gun-nut on the Left side of the barricades handing out my arsenal and giving marksmanship pointers.

I think you're full of it about the military.

In New Orleans the National Guard went house to house confiscating legally-owned firearms by threatening their owners with deadly force.

This is unconstitutional as all hell, yet it happened, right here in the good ol' US of A, less than six months ago.

"Then again, maybe we really are all authority-hating curmudgeons, and would cross party lines to join in pissing on the grave of any tyrant."

Ah. Optimism.

Otherwise, nicely put.