There are a number of studies indicating cell phone usage for young children can cause developmental problems and now the state of Colorado wants to pass a cell phone ban restricting the sale of such devices to anyone under thirteen.

Anyone who reads my blog well knows I’m a Libertarian and you can probably guess on which side of the issue I come down upon. However, it’s not quite as cut and dried as you might imagine. Naturally I think it’s a silly law, I hope that goes without saying. Parents have access to information indicating what is a good age for cell phone use and how much such devices should be used by children. Said parents should make the final decision about their child’s use of cell phones. It is ridiculous for the state to attempt to usurp the rights of the parents so.

That being said, the Constitution of the United States is silent on the subject of cell phone sales with the intent to distribute to a child. Where the Constitution is thus silent, it is the purview of states to do as they will. In this case, the constitution does not grant me, or anyone else, the right to own a cell phone. Therefore, the state of Colorado is free to ban the sale of such devices.

I think the passing of such ridiculous laws often results in exactly what the Founding Fathers envisioned when they tried to limit the power of government. It is when legislators try to impose such ridiculous bans on the people of our country that action is often finally taken. If the people in Colorado think this ban is insane, if manufacturers of cell phones move their business elsewhere, if a parent is denied the right to buy their child a cell phone and has to go through the inevitable black-market to get one; there is recourse. They can vote for representatives who repeal such a law.

That’s the way it’s supposed to work. I think our elected officials are obligated to pass the laws they think are best for communities. They shouldn’t worry about the number of votes they get in subsequent elections. They shouldn’t worry about what the people of Colorado think about this law, if the politicians think it’s a good law, pass it.

Then the matter goes to the voters.

This is the driving force behind our form of government. It only works when politicians care about passing laws and stop worrying about public sentiment. I think this law is ridiculous, but the elected representatives of the people of Colorado may think otherwise. Good for them.

Tom Liberman

I see a familiar pattern in the beating of the war drums. Our enemies are readying to attack us. They are engaged in acts of war upon the United States. We must defend ourselves. It is quite similar to the mantra that came out of President George W. Bush’s Whitehouse prior to our invasion of Iraq. It seems to be resonating with the same group of people.

War is not a glorious endeavor. War means death, maiming, horrific psychological damage. Even if we are successful in various combat scenarios it entails long operations where soldiers are subject to guerilla style attack. It means families are split for years, that fathers and mothers are separated from children. And this is only for our troops, the ostensible enemy is mainly non-combatants and they will suffer the most, they always do in war.

War is sometimes necessary, this I do not deny. However, I see nothing to be gained from war in Syria or war in North Korea. I’m quite certain our military can inflict huge amounts of damage. We can kill hundreds of thousands of people. The losses of our enemies will likely be far greater than any we sustain, but to what end?

North Korea is a nation of twenty million people. It is physically adjacent to China and far from our shores. Supporting such an effort would cost trillions of dollars in addition to the money we are spending in Iraq and Afghanistan, two conflicts from which are yet fully extricated.
Syria is in the middle of an incredibly volatile region. There are so many different factions involved it’s impossible to count them all. Any ally of ours today will almost certainly be an enemy tomorrow. Our troops in Afghanistan are being attacked by supposed allies on a weekly basis and the situation in Syria will be far worse.

Russia has a strong military, certainly not as powerful as our own, but one that can inflict serious damage to our soldiers. They can sink our ships and shoot our planes out of the sky. China can do the same.

Supporting our troops in these far-flung regions is not an easy endeavor and our allies are more and more closing their doors to our support lines. Our major airfield in the region is at Incirlik but the Turks are not in agreement with our policy regarding the Kurds. We have armed the Kurds and aided their attacks. It is likely Turkey will refuse to allow us to use this base in active war. We maintain bases in Iraq, despite any nonsense you’ve heard that we fully pulled out of the country, but they are not as functional as Incirlik.

I suppose people somehow get the illusion in their head that war will be easy. That we won’t take too many casualties, that not that many soldiers will be maimed. I’m not sure how, after recent events, people can think like this, but as I read the comments it is undeniably so.
And the drums beat on, those who support them are vocal. The more people support such saber rattling, such belligerent talk, such tough posturing; the deeper we become enslaved to these policies. We can’t back down once we’ve crossed certain lines. At least that’s largely the sentiment I perceive.

Sometimes I think it is people just carrying over their feelings from the recent election, half-troll, half-serious. I see this apparent eagerness to attack our enemies, to put our troops in harm’s way, to expose so many people to so much potential harm and people treating it like a game of words to one-up their friends on Facebook.

This is war. This is lives. This is not a game. Choose your position wisely.

Tom Liberman

Executive Privilege is a subject of much debate thanks to Attorney General Jeff Session’s sort of thinking about, maybe, kind of, invoking it in regards to testimony about the firing of FBI Director James Comey. I’d like to examine the principle of Executive Privilege as a whole and what it means to a Libertarian like myself.

The first thing we must clearly understand is Executive Privilege is not in the Constitution of the United States. Nope. Not a word. The President and his communications are not immune to oversight from Congress and the Legislative Branch. Both branches can and do have the right to subpoena such information if it is material to their oversight responsibilities.

The next thing we must immediately dispense with is the idea that one political party has a monopoly on using Executive Privilege. The previous three presidents have resorted to this doctrine to cover-up wrongdoing on a scale not seen in the first two-hundred plus years of this nation’s existence. President Bill Clinton used it to attempt to avoid testimony from the Secret Service during the Monica Lewinsky affair. President George W. Bush used it to avoid releasing information about the highly suspicious death of Pat Tillman and the disgusting cover-up that followed. President Barak Obama used it to prevent release of information in regards to the Fast and Furious firearms operation.

Our first president, George Washington, once refused to turn over information regarding negotiations on a treaty with England to the House of Representative believing the Senate alone had oversight responsibilities on ratification of such items. He did turn it over to the Senate.

Thomas Jefferson refused to turn over information relating to Vice President Aaron Burr because it contained sensitive information related to the security of the nation. In my opinion, and that of Chief Justice Warren Burger, Executive Privilege should be used only in the rare cases national security interests are involved. When the investigation or prosecution of a crime is underway, the agency or branch charged with oversight should almost always be able to see those documents, certainly privately and not for public release.

The first time we see Executive Privilege used to hide normal conversations between the president and anyone is when President Andrew Jackson used it in regards to his discussions about the Second Bank of the United States.

President Dwight Eisenhower invoked it in regards to Senator Eugene McCarthy and request of military information regarding communists.

President Nixon used in an attempt to prevent information about the Watergate scandal from getting to into the hands of prosecutors. Then the floodgates opened with Clinton, Bush, Obama, and as we’re seeing President Donald Trump. They are using the idea that any conversation, even if criminal, is privileged.

Point in hand is the current situation. We all know what happened. There is no mystery. Trump wanted to fire Comey. He asked Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to find a reason to do it. His real purpose was discomfort at Comey’s investigation into ties between his administration and Russia. If Sessions knew this was the real purpose, and isn’t saying, he has broken the law. He was recused from the investigation. Therefore, Sessions must go on with the charade that he had no idea that’s why Trump wanted to fire Comey. If he refuses to testify at all, citing Executive Privilege, then he will not be guilty of perjury should hard evidence of the real situation become available. This would end up with Sessions in prison.

Now, finally, as to my point of a view on all of this. As a Libertarian, I’m disturbed by the entire idea of Executive Privilege. If information is pertinent to a criminal investigation I see few reasons it shouldn’t be turned over. I understand national security and secret information must be treated with great care. Such details should be released only to the highest-level officials with oversight authority into the particular case.

What the President of the United States says to his advisors is absolutely my business. I pay all of their salaries. This is my country as much as it is theirs. If they want to talk about something then, as public officials, they must be prepared for that information to be available in a criminal investigation. If a crime has been committed you can’t simply say I won’t talk about it, Executive Privilege. If people can’t see how obviously dangerous that precedent truly is, well, I don’t imagine you should bother reading further.

Executive Privilege is a vile perversion of the very job our elected officials are supposed to be doing. If they commit a crime they must be held accountable for it. If they don’t have to give over information that implicates their criminal activities then what is to stop them from engaging in lawless behavior all the time, other than their conscience? Clearly, nothing.

If our elected officials can commit crimes without oversight, without the ability of law enforcement to conduct investigations, I fear for our nation. Holding elected representatives, all the way to the highest office, accountable for criminal behavior is vital to our national security. Far more important than the privacy of any particular conversation.

I’m virtually certain those who consider themselves supporters of President Trump will think I’m completely wrong about this now but would have totally agreed during the Obama presidency. And, of course, vice versa. That’s another big part of the problem but I’ll leave that alone for today.

Executive Privilege is a crime against the people of the United States. It should largely not exist.

Tom Liberman