An interesting story in the San Francisco Chronicle highlighting how private schools are outcompeting both radical madrasas and government schools in the hearts and minds of a great many Pakistanis. Sounds a little bit like this.
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The Right to Speak in Non-Government-Approved Ways
School officials denied student Pete Palmer the right to wear a shirt supporting John Edwards’s presidential campaign at his Dallas-area high school. They cited the district’s dress code, which prohibited messages on student clothing except for those that supported school activities or district-approved organizations, clubs or teams.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit agreed with the school district that this was a reasonable “time, place and manner” speech restriction. Applying the test from United States v. O’Brien, the court found that the dress code was content- and viewpoint-neutral, and served an important governmental purpose. Palmer now seeks Supreme Court review, citing seemingly contradictory precedents from the Second and Third Circuits and arguing that the regulation here flies in the face of the protection afforded to student speech by the famous case of Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District.
Cato, joined by the Institute for Justice, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the Christian Legal Society, and the National Association of Evangelicals, filed an amicus brief supporting Palmer’s petition and urging the continued use of Tinker. We argue that the Court should clarify its jurisprudence in this area to stop schools from applying broad restrictions in an attempt to avoid controversy and debate—and thereby threaten the very political and religious speech at the First Amendment’s core.
To prevent the chilling of student speech, the Court should solidify Tinker’s central tenet, reaffirming that so long as speech doesn’t “materially and substantially disrupt” the educational process, students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”
The case is Palmer v. Waxahachie Independent School District. The Court will be deciding early in 2010 whether to hear it.
The Slippery Slope Goes Vertical
In the Obama era, the slippery slope has gone vertical. Instead of “eventually,” the feared extensions of government power come immediately.
When President Obama decided to convert George W. Bush’s bailout of General Motors Corp. and Chrysler L.L.C. into effective government ownership, critics warned that this could lead to political intrusion into the management of automobile companies, with decisions being made for political instead of economic reasons. The companies would get less efficient. The government might try to preserve jobs or engage in political grandstanding rather than build sound companies that serve consumers — eventually.
But there was no “eventually” about it. Before he had even secured government control, Obama fired the chief executive officer of General Motors. He decided what the ownership structure of the companies should be. He insisted that the companies build “clean cars” rather than cars that consumers want to buy. And as soon as a deal was concluded, members of Congress started trying to block the closing of inefficient dealerships and to require the companies to buy their palladium in Montana, use unionized trucking companies, remove mercury from scrapped cars, and so on. Politics reared its ugly head in the first moments of government control.
Now we have the federal government’s unprecedented intrusions into executive-pay decisions at seven bailed-out banks and automobile companies.…
Read more at today’s Philadelphia Inquirer.
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The Pelosi Bill’s High Water Mark
Democrats are having difficulty corralling 218 votes for the Pelosi bill because Americans do not want government to be as big and as powerful as the House leadership does. Pro-life Democrats do not want a government so big that it can force taxpayers to fund abortions. Pro-choice Democrats do not want a government so big that it uses subsidies to restrict access to abortion coverage. Other Democrats don’t want a government so big that it turns the United States into a welfare magnet.
The American people don’t want the Democrats’ approach to health care generally. The more time the public has to digest ObamaCare, the more they dislike it:
And the Pelosi bill is the most expensive and extreme version of ObamaCare. Opposition will climb higher when the public learns the bill costs some $1.5 trillion more than Democrats claim.
Even a majority vote would not necessarily indicate majority support for the Pelosi bill. Rep. Jim Cooper (TN) and other Democrats are voting aye only because they want to keep the process moving – i.e., because this isn’t the vote that counts.
Win or lose, tonight’s vote will be the high water mark for the Pelosi bill.
(Cross-posted at Politico’s Health Care Arena.)
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Just Say “No” to Competition
The Democrats who still control the Virginia State Senate (which wasn’t on the ballot this week) say they want to work with the new Republican governor.
“I won’t be like the House Republicans were, where anything they propose is bad,” said Senate Majority Leader Richard L. Saslaw (D‑Fairfax), who like many Democrats says the GOP-led House obstructed the agenda of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D). “If there are areas where we can work things out, I’m ready, willing and able, and so is my caucus.”
But not so fast:
But asked about certain key pieces of McDonnell’s agenda, Saslaw demurred. Selling state-run liquor stores to raise money for transportation, for instance, would sacrifice the annual revenue the stores provide to schools and other purposes, Saslaw said. The Senate’s education committee remains opposed to changing state laws to allow more charter schools, another McDonnell proposal, he said.
No to bipartisan cooperation, no to competition, yes to hoary monopolies. Is that really the rock on which the Democrats want to make their stand as the country’s “implicit libertarian synthesis” yields a “libertarian moment”?
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Liberty Most Deer
As a footnote to Chris Moody’s post about Monday’s 20-year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, I just came across this article about red deer refusing to cross from Germany into the Czech Republic. This, of course, is a border that was the once heavily fortified dividing line between free West Germany and captive Czechoslovakia.
Even deer who weren’t born when barbed wire, watchtowers, and armed guards prevented the natural extension of their happy grazing grounds act as if the Cold War never ended — apparently because they learned their habits from their parents, who learned them from their parents.
Still, as with the new generation of Eastern Europeans who have no memory of Communism, some young deer are starting to break the mold, taking advantage of — and even taking for granted — their newfound freedom. I wonder if the grass (and ferns, and whatever else deer eat) is any greener on the other side of the former Iron Curtain.
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Who’s Blogging about Cato
Here’s a round up of bloggers who are writing about Cato research, analysis and commentary:
- Below the Beltway’s Doug Mataconis reviews Gene Healy’s book The Cult of the Presidency.
- Matt Yglesias takes aim at Jeffrey Miron’s critique of government health care. Miron responds.
- PoliticalPolicy.net writes about Cato’s commentary on President Obama’s “Pay Czar” Kenneth Feinberg.
- Libertarian blogger Ryan Jaroncyk mentions Cato in a blog post on the war in Afghanistan.
- Attorney.org highlights Cato on their “Featured Organization” series.
- At Cafe Hayek, Don Boudreaux features a new Cato paper on socialism in India.
Email us to let us know if you’re blogging about Cato.