Letters

From the November 2006 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

Kelo v. New London was the biggest assault on property rights by the U.S. Supreme Court in the last 50 years. Judge Kozinski's dismissive attitude toward the victims—"They were paid for [their property]. They were not dispossessed"—should raise eyebrows.

Kozinski also questions whether the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is a "rubber stamp" court. According to the The Washington Post, the court approved 18,748 wiretap warrant applications and rejected only five between 1979 and 2004.

I know a lot of people who are holding their breath waiting for the first true libertarian to get on the Supreme Court bench. Judge Kozinski gives me enough pause to want to keep holding my breath.

Jay Fisher
Atlanta, GA

Kozinski declares: "You are objecting to Kelo because property was taken for privately owned businesses. But the businesses provided services to lots of people. So if the city thinks there should be a private business instead of a private house, it has to make that decision. If you want to decide on your own, you can go live in a forest."

Private property rights are the objective means of identifying and adjudicating disputes among members of society; they are the protectors of individual rights, which would not be possible without them. To believe that such rights should be legally and ethically subjected to the whims of a public auction block is such a gross and disastrous abrogation of intellectual consistency and integrity as to be positively unbelievable. To hear it coming from the "most libertarian" judge in the country makes it positively scary.

Bradley T. Harrington
Milwaukie, OR

Are Failed States a Threat to America?

Justin Logan and Christopher Preble make it sound as if national sovereignty is not the backbone of the anarchic international system that recognizes all nation-states as equals, regardless of wealth ("Are Failed States a Threat to America?" July 2006). The same way the young United States was recognized by other nations after we rebelled in the Revolutionary War, we too have the obligation to recognize the sovereignty of nation-states, whether we like it or not.

The United States should worry less about military involvement where none is needed and focus more on bringing sustainable prosperity to "failed states." When there is no economic opportunity, people respond with violence. Of the states on the failed list, how many have local, sustainable economies that employ the nation's people?

Anneliese Essig
via the Internet