My opinions on crime are very straightforward.
- Have very few laws, mostly at the state level,
with the goal of protecting life, liberty, and property. - Have strong constitutional and procedural protections for the rights of the accused.
- To alter the cost-benefit calculations of bad people, impose serious punishment on those convicted.
This set of principles explains my views on a wide range of issues, such as the War on Drugs, asset forfeiture, money laundering, search and seizure, and the death penalty.
But I sometimes come across an incident that challenges these principles.
Let’s look at a horrible story from Michigan about girls being genitally mutilated.
Dr. Jumana Nagarwala was arrested in April 2017 and accused of leading a criminal conspiracy that involved multiple doctors and resulted in the mutilation of nine girls over the course of twelve years. The practice, which is universally recognized as a gross violation of human rights, is traditional among the Dawoodi Bohra, the Muslim sect to which Nagarwala and his co-conspirators belong.
My visceral instinct is for some tit-for-tat justice. The so-called doctors should receive equivalent treatment, without the benefit of anesthesia.
Since that’s not an option, a very lengthy prison sentence could be the next-best alternative.
But something very unusual happened. The barbaric doctors had been charged by the federal government based on a federal law against genital mutilation, and a judge decided that the statute exceeded the proper powers of the federal government.
A federal judge dismissed charges Tuesday against several Michigan doctors accused of mutilating the genitals of numerous underage girls, ruling that the federal prohibition
against the practice is unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman argued that the 22-year-old federal law prohibiting female genital mutilation (FGM), which went unused until last year, constitutes federal overreach. …the judge’s ruling entirely clears four defendants in the case, including three mothers who allegedly handed their underage daughters over to Nagarwala to be mutilated.
This is a quandary.
I want the “doctors” to be thrown under the jail, yet part of me is very happy that a federal judge actually acknowledges that the Constitution imposes some limits on federal power.
Too bad Judge Friedman wasn’t sitting in for Justice John Roberts when the Obamacare case was (wrongly) decided.
Anyhow, here’s what has since happened.
In response to the case, Michigan governor Rick Snyder signed new laws prohibiting the practice of FGM, but as those laws applied only to future violations, the defendants in this case were charged under the old federal statute. Twenty-three other states, however, do not have laws banning the practice, leading critics of the judge’s ruling to suggest that parents intent on mutilating their daughters for religious purposes will simply travel to states where they can do so legally.
I have a couple of concluding thoughts.
First, I imagine that all 50 states – even crazy California – will pass laws against this barbaric ritual. So there’s no reason to relax my strong support for federalism.
Second, I hope Michigan authorities figure out how to charge the so-called doctors under existing state laws against assault, kidnapping, 
and anything else that might work.
In conclusion, I’m not under the illusion that any system will deliver perfect justice. But I do think we would get the best-possible outcomes if we adhered to constitutional principles and restricted the size and scope of the federal government.
P.S. Let’s not forget that jury nullification also should exist as an additional bulwark against bad laws and abusive officials.
there are more conflicts to come… conflicts between the 7th century… and the 21st… the real question is will be which century’s belief systems will gain political power… and who……. or –what– will wield that power……..
“The Lefty Lies About a World Without Borders”
BY SARAH HOYT
https://pjmedia.com/trending/the-lefty-lies-about-a-world-without-borders/
in some countries… simply offering persons of another faith a drink of water on a hot day is considered blasphemy and is punishable by death… they abort their female children and force their girls to be circumcised… honor killings are common place… (with little or no criminal penalties) polygamy is permitted… many of their codified social and religious practices are (by western standards) extreme… but under the leftist doctrine of Moral Relativism… all faiths and cultures are equal… and a matter of individual choice… so… according to the socialist democrats… it’s all good…………………………….. including female circumcision…
[…] Source: A Libertarian Quandary | International Liberty […]
Agree with Daniel re federalism, but there could be a rational way for Libertarians to condone a federal law against FGM. If a religion practiced amputation of limbs, the feds could argue that the 4th Amendment provision of “Being secure in your person” would apply to victims of the practice. Same goes for FGM; girls subject to such a practice could be protected by their same Constitutional right.
The New World Dark Ages by colonelnogov • December 13, 2015 • Comments Offon The New World Dark Ages
Article by Ben Doolin on Dec. 13, 2015
History will look back at us with disgust… wondering how we could be so barbaric.
I am referring of course, to the inhumane, illogical and disgusting tradition of kidnapping, caging, raping, torturing and often murdering fellow humans on a grand scale. The tradition we call Prison.
The US has 4% of the world’s population and 25% of the world’s prison population. That puts into clear perspective that what we do particularly in the US is WAY out of proportion… before we even get to the fact that there is no logical support for prisons in the first place.
You might be thinking ‘this could never happen to me… I obey the law.’ However, the book 3 Felonies a Day exposes that the average American commits 3 felonies per day, most often completely unaware. There are so many laws and regulations on the books in the US that reading 200 words per minute, 8 hours a day… it would take 30,000 years to read them all. That is assuming they stopped creating new laws and regulations which are being spewed out at break neck speed. There is also the idea of comprehension as no one can agree what laws mean. The Supreme Court is very often split 5-4 (the best legal minds… reading the same laws) and recently decided that words do not mean what their common usage would imply. Remember, ignorance of the law is no excuse!
As for the legitimacy of this system… consider for a minute three people… Mr. Red, Mr. White and Mr. Blue. Mr. Red steals a dollar from Mr. White. Mr. Blue sees the crime, confronts Mr. Red and says “I saw you commit that crime… so, I’m going to take that dollar from you… and I’m going to take another dollar from you… as ‘punishment’… and I’m going to keep both”.
There is no logical reason for Mr. Blue (representing government) to be involved. His interaction is to violate Red and White for his own personal benefit.
To further their own self interest, politicians destroy the lives of offenders, often leaving them without the ability to get a job or find a house for having been labeled a ‘felon’.
This leaves ‘an honest life’ out of reach for very many… leaving them to pursue crime to stay alive. This class of ‘boogeymen’ are used by politicians that promise to ‘get tough on crime’. This cycle has resulted in three strikes laws and mandatory minimums which has pushed the US prison population to over 2.2 million… and has left a third of the nation with a criminal record.
What’s worse… is that 80% of the prison population violated no person or property. They committed no crime. They simply ‘offended the legislature’.
Beyond that… ‘the right to legislate’ is logically invalid. Can you personally… decide on some random rule… and enforce that rule with a death threat? If you tried, you’d be killed in your attempt to enforce it… and everyone would understand that you were in the wrong. That is because humans do not have that right. Since humans do not have that right… it can not be assigned to anyone else. There is no logical path for people to have ‘the right to legislate’.
All that is needed for social order… is an enforced civil system. When person or property has been violated, the victim should be able to make a claim for the damage done (no victim, no crime). The offender, if found to have been responsible for the violation should be compelled to make the victim (or the victim’s estate… if the victim died) whole, at which point the offender has ‘fixed what he broke’ and can continue his life (acknowledging that murder might result in an award so large that the offender spends the rest of his life working off that debt).
There is also no need for humans to enslave themselves to rulers (The State) for this ‘minor service’. Private dispute resolution already exists in the free market.
Showing again how The State… is both evil… and unnecessary.
________________________________
SOON THIS WILL APPLY TO ALL WOMEN:
https://www.dcclothesline.com/2018/11/24/muslim-female-genital-mutilation-in-america-legalized-by-judge/
aren’t there already laws to address FGM, such as child abuse or battery? Why doesn’t male circumcision fall into this category? …