Stop crying in your beer over Alito
Just in time for the Bush State of the Union speech this evening, Samuel Alito has been sworn in.
This is quite obviously bad news for Liberty, as Alito has indicated a personal bias in favor of executive power at the expense of constitutional restraint. I do not, however, think that one one has to embrace a truly Hegelian position of the “Maoists for Nixon” sort to draw the right lessons from this, though.
Libertarians need not welcome or actively seek expansion of state tyranny at the expense of constitutional restraint. Institutional incentives ensure that the State will do this all on its own and certainly doesn’t need libertarian help. It will keep doing that and the only rational response is the radicalization of those who favor freedom — libertarians, constitutionalist conservatives and liberals who believe in constitutional protection for civil liberties.
As the realization dawns that no constitution can effectively restrain State power in the long run…
That the American experiment with “limited government” has been a failed experiment…
Those who value freedom will seek new safeguards for their rights. They’ll find them in the anarchist alternative and revolutionary agorism.
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