A Stitch in Haste

If you could condense everything I've ever written on this blog into one succinct passage, it would come out something like this:

First, democracy requires judicial supervision to thwart the excesses of elected officials. Second, governments closest to the people are — never mind what sentimentalists say — often the worst.

Whether that says more about me or about the person who actually wrote that succinct passage is unclear.

Meanwhile, if you could condense everything I've ever written on this blog into one succinct passage, plus one footnote, that footnote would come out something like this:

P.S. Ron Paul is not a libertarian —

[Dale] Bell, 58, who served in the Reagan administration, calls himself "a Ron Paul guy."

Under Ron Paul's theory of unbridled anti-federalist majoritarianism, the "fiefdom" (Will's term) of Pinal County, Arizona*, would be perfectly within its "states' rights" authority to ban dancing in Bell's restaurant, the controversy at issue in Will's column.

For those curious about the fact pattern:

The question concerns statutory interpretation. The statute includes "dance hall" — along with bowling alleys, penny arcades, skating rinks and other things — among the "amusement or recreational" enterprises that must be "within a completely enclosed structure." Does Bell's restaurant, which makes 99.75 percent of its revenue from food and drink (the rest comes from pool tables and trinkets) become an illegal (because not completely enclosed) dance hall when someone rises to "sway, shuffle or even dance"?
...
The 14th Amendment's guarantees of equal protection and due process of law should mean that government may interfere with a citizen's economic liberty only to promote important government interests that cannot be advanced through less restrictive means. Under today's weak "rational basis" standard, courts validate virtually any abridgement of economic liberty, no matter how tenuous the connection to even a minor public purpose. Conservatives, note well: Restoring economic liberty requires a kind of judicial activism — judges judging rather than merely ratifying government's caprices.

Or as I have put it:

I will never — never — be more afraid of judges than of politicians. And I will always — always — be afraid of those who are.

Incidentally, can you guess which other fiefdom has declared a very similar "War on Dancing"?

I would refine Will's analysis only to note that the Fourteenth Amendment is meant to restrict, not "government" writ large but states specifically — as well as their subordinate units (cities and towns, counties, school districts, etc.) — and to emphasize that there is no fundamental difference between having one's rights violated by Congress, a state legislature, a town council or a school board. A local majority can be just as tyrannical — perhaps more so — than a national majority. That was the whole idea behind Will's second point at the beginning of this post.

That was also supposed to be the great charge of the Fourteenth Amendment — the "new birth of freedom" that has mostly proven to be stillborn.

More thoughts at Hit & Run.

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*When did Arizona stop being "Goldwater country"? Can it be traced to Sandra Day O'Connor ("the only former legislator on the Supreme Court"), to John McCain ("loyal foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution"), both or neither? (But cf., Jeff Flake.)