Don’t get me wrong; Johnson is a vast improvement over most. But the comparison should have been unnecessary… unless you’re admitting that Paul is the Real Deal.

“The law”, if we mean written laws here, is just a bunch of stuff other people say to do or not to do, or else they will (try to) throw you in prison or shoot you.

Doing something a bunch of people say not to do, on pain of being thrown in prison or shot, doesn’t necessarily make you a hero. Or a villain, for that matter. It just makes you someone who defied or ignored a threat.

“You don’t get to try to cover the ass of illegals or undermine the importance of SOME shared cultural values by trying to cover over that fact.”

What cultural values do Mexicans lack (that Anglos possess) that makes them especially illiberal?

Is it their willingness too work for rent from willing landlords even if the laws forbid it (keeping in mind that laws are just those preferences that lawmakers threaten to enforce).

Unfortunately, your arguments are so facile that it’s hard to know where to begin. Breaking the law does not inherently make you a “hero.” You cannot consider immigration laws the same as laws on slavery. Otherwise, you must not think too much of anti-trespass laws, ’cause, hey, you can’t tell me it’s your property because that would restrict my freedom of movement.

And you don’t get to lob ad hominem attacks at Anglo-American history (or Western history in general) and, BAM, make it then seem like culture doesn’t matter. The philosophy of liberty, as entailed in libertarianism, DID primarily arise in Anglo-American history. You don’t get to try to cover the ass of illegals or undermine the importance of SOME shared cultural values by trying to cover over that fact.

I take solace in knowing that there must be many, many other people like me in the world who can’t stand the stink of the words that come out of your mouth.

1. Why did the author of that article have to go all the way back to 1980 before he could even find one single case that even remotely resembled Lawrence (and even then not really, as it was in a semi-public place in a state park)?

2. Why did the author have comparatively little difficulty documenting cases where the sodomy law was used to prosecute: A. sex in public (which is also illegal among heterosexuals, B. sexual assault (also illegal among heterosexuals), and C. sex with minors (also illegal among heterosexuals)?

3. Why haven’t thousands of allegedly persecuted gays in Texas come forth in the post-Lawrence days to file similar suits or to have their convictions expunged, now that there is a court precedent stating unequivocally that they were wronged?

The answer, of course, is simple: prosecutions of people in private residences under the Texas sodomy law were infrequent and few, if any at all.

And your speculation that they simply were not reported because people were “shamed” or because records weren’t kept (not true, btw: everything down to the most minor traffic ticket is logged in computer these days and instantly available in any law enforcement database) is just that – unsourced, unverified, unprovable, and thus unreliable speculation.

Hyperbole aside, you misunderstand the nature of the evidence that you’re citing. A “reported” case is not just any old case, of which there is a record. A “reported” case is one which has been published into a reporter. The overwhelming majority of cases, especially trial court-level cases (or Justice of the Peace Courts which exist in Texas) are not published in a reporter. This is true in any state. Your average DUI, for example, is not “reported”, even though any particular court may process thousands of DUI cases per year.

In the case cited by the author of the article, in which the two men were charged and convicted of homosexual sodomy in Texas, that case was not a reported case, yet it still happened. Since the Texas Court system doesn’t keep track of how many people it arrested for violating sodomy statutes, there is simply no way of knowing. Your claim that it was a “dead letter,” however, is patently false.

My exhibit number 1 is the original Captain Queeg himself, John McCain.

The fact that the author of that piece could find virtually no cases directly mirroring the circumstances of Lawrence (gay sex in a clearly private residence) is evidence itself that such prosecutions were AT THE MOST exceedingly rare and unusual. In fact, even the two cases you cite as comparable (the camper in a semi-public place, a state park, and the gay party that yielded zero criminal indictments) took place over 30 years ago.

But why let little facts like that get in the way of your ridiculous hyperbole about “gestapo” storming into houses and arresting gay people at random in the pre-Lawrence days? According to your original comment you’d have us believe that Texas circa 1998 was no different than Nazi Germany.

Yet if you look at the facts, that simply wasn’t happening – not in Texas and not anywhere else in the U.S. (and I believe that also qualifies you for the very same title of LIAR that you so casually fling around at others). Furthermore to suggest falsely that it was routine and regular, as you plainly did, is to trivialize and cheapen the actual victims of abusive police behavior, including gays who have been persecuted on other grounds.

Your dishonesty is appalling. The law review article you reference is “The Unknown Past of Lawrence v. Texas.” It is readily available online. Although you selectively quote that there was “no publicly reported court decisions involving the enforcement of the law against consensual sex between adult persons in a private space,” you fail to to follow it up with the author’s contention that:

“However, the absence of reported decisions does not mean that the Texas sodomy law was never enforced against private activity. Instead, perhaps because of the shame long associated with homosexuality and homosexual acts, defendants arrested and charged with violating the law routinely pleaded guilty to the offense, paid whatever fine was imposed, and hushed up about their convictions. (44) As a result, almost all of the uses and misuses by police of the Texas sodomy law (and of sodomy laws in other states) against private acts will never be known. They are lost to history because of shame and fear.”

The author then recounts one case in which two men in a camper were charged with sodomy, but because the defendants were too afraid and ashamed to appeal, it died in Justice of the Peace Court and never became a “reported” decision. The author then recounts another case where a house full of homosexual men and transvestites that were dancing and kissing each other, were all arrested, thrown into a paddy wagon, and hauled off to jail, although they were ultimately never charged. The simple fact is, the Texas sodomy laws overturned by Lawrence were used to harass, intimidate, and imprison gays.

Unsurprisingly, the article also sets out at great length to set forth what it believes to be the actual story of the case, casting doubt on the official police story as contradicted by other witnesses. As far as that goes, it directly contradicts most of your “narrative” of the event. Again, people should read the article as it would be too lengthy to cite anything of substance to contradict your highly slanted story.

That right there makes him head, shoulders and waist above the pack in my book.

It was NOT “the fucking gestapo knocking down the doors of gay people and hauling them off to jail” by any means. The statute that was challenged was a de facto dead letter in the law, and had not been enforced for many years before that case for a number of reasons. The most obvious of those is that it is generally UNCONSTITUTIONAL to randomly invade people’s bedrooms for reasons wholly separate and apart from whatever the law happens to say about sodomy. In other words, it was basically an impossible crime to witness unless it was occurring in broad daylight on a street corner (and if I am not mistaken, heterosexual intercourse in broad daylight on a street corner would be subject to criminal prosecution under other statutes…as it should be).

The defendants in Lawrence knew this to be the reality in Texas at the time, but wanted to force an arrest under the statute as a basis for challenging it in court. So they staged the “crime” in a way that intentionally ensured a cop would enter a private residence when the two men were having sex.

Defendants John Lawrence & Tyron Garner recruited third accomplice Robert Eubanks, another of Lawrence’s lovers, to place a false 911 call about an intruder with a gun in Lawrence’s apartment (Eubanks even served 15 days in jail for making the false report). The cops showed up to an apartment with the door left intentionally open, walked inside looking for the reported intruder, and instead found Lawrence and Garner having sex. They were arrested, which is exactly what Lawrence and Garner wanted…because it gave them a basis to make the supreme court challenge they had been planning all along.

Though it is indeed surprising given what we know about cops these days, there was absolutely nothing “gestapo” about what happened in that case.

OTOH it is entirely fair to say that the cop was stupid insofar as he fell for the trap exactly as they intended, when simple common sense says he should have charged Eubanks for a false report and left it at that.

Neither one will get to the White House because they lack the charisma, polish, and temperament necessary. Stand back for one minute and, if possible, watch the Republican Presidential debates as someone who is hearing Ron Paul for the first time. I think you will find he is caustic, divisive, and uses phrases and terminology often associated with crackpots. You may think he’s just telling the truth and standing up for what he believes but, in the end, there are ways to convey new, and perhaps radical, ideas without sounding like the crazy cat lady from The Simpsons.

No thanks. No matter what the other 99% of his views are. Period.

I wonder – are you even capable of responding to a post without flagrantly mischaracterizing its arguments or being entirely facile? I’m beginning to doubt it.

When it comes to certain issues before the Supreme Court, I would much rather have an Obama-appointed “living Constitution” Justice deciding the issue than a hypothetical Ron Paulian “strict constructionist,” because, NO LIE, Ron Paul thinks that the States should have the right to criminalize consensual homosexual conduct within the home. You can smarmily try to mischaracterize my position as being upset that “Ron Paul isn’t 100% behind gay marriage” – but that’s not my concern. My concern (on this issue at least) is about having the fucking gestapo knocking down the doors of gay people and hauling them off to jail, which, consequently, is pretty much what happened in Lawrence v. Texas. You may think this is some silly little “internecine dispute,” but that just makes you an idiot.

Thankfully, on this issue at least, the Libertarian Party is miles ahead of Ron Paul.

Newsflash: Electorally, IT JUST DOESN’T MATTER who libertarians vote for, because there aren’t enough of us to elect a president. Our only choice is: Am I going to throw a symbolic vote towards a candidate that I don’t believe in? My answer: No thanks. (Actually, for Ron Paul, it didn’t matter – I’m not a registered republican and I live in a closed primary state, so I didn’t have a say.) The idea that some libertarian consensus towards a candidate could possibly have any influence on them being elected to the presidency of the US is a wild flight of fantasy. That’s not “defeatist;” it’s just the simple truth. It’s a numbers game, but numbers we do not have.

Of course, the “race to the presidency” idea is a mistake, anyway. It’s a fantasy to think that if we just get the “right guy” that makes libertarianism sound appealing, then the electorate is going to fall in line. That’s not how things work. Any “libertarian revolution” has to first be a revolution in civil society. We are only ever going to get a libertarian president (or better yet, abolish the presidency) when we have done the legwork to convince a majority of people that libertarian ideas are in fact the correct ideas.

I can go either way on abortion personally. Paul may not be the most gay friendly guy out there, but he sure as hell isn’t going to attack them the way neocons have. Same can be said for Barr. And I don’t think RP is racist in the least despite what Lew Rockwell may have penned in his name.

I’m with PW. I’m so goddamn sick of the defeatist attitude of libertarians in general. I have been in the party for so long and all the purists want an Ayn Rand reincarnate and nothing less. I want the person who has the best chance of giving me more freedoms then they are willing to take away. If it’s a Republican named Gary Johnson, party affiliation be damned that’s who I’m gonna support until he’s out of the hunt. Same if it’s a Democrat.

For so many libertarians, they believe that it’s either their perfect version of liberty or it’s no liberty. If that’s how you feel, you’re gonna get no liberty every single time. It’s ridiculous to expect perfection, but I believe that it is more than reasonable to want better than what you have without being labeled a sellout.

A “libertarian” vote for McCain is just as indefensible as one for Obama.

Johnson/Flake 2012!

A. Bush/the Republicans deserve to be punished for governing as tax-and-spend socialists-lite…so I’m gonna vote for the communist!

B. Bob Barr/Ron Paul/insert-your-candidate here is ideologically impure from a libertarian standpoint…so I’m gonna vote for the communist!

C. Barack Obama is “intelligent” and a “pragmatist” and full of hope and change…so I’m gonna believe his rhetorical bullshit and vote for him anyway even though my better instinct tells me he’s a communist!

(Note: to their credit, there were also many libertarians who (1) voted strategically for a lesser evil than Obama, (2) voted ideologically for someone like Barr despite his flaws, or (3) declined to vote at all. All three are respectable positions. But I stand by my assessment that voting for Obama was and remains nothing short of batshit insanity for any true libertarian)

“If the polls in my home state are close: Obama” – Peter Bagge

“Obama. The Republicans must be punished and punished hard.” – Ronald Bailey

“I plan to vote for Obama mainly because he is not a Republican and not John McCain, who is temperamentally unfit to be president.” – Bruce Bartlett

“For not a single “liberal” reason, I am voting not only for Obama, but for the GOP to be utterly spanked and sent into exile” – David Brin

“Barack Obama. All my life I’ve been waiting for a black president; Obama’s not monumentally unqualified, and his solid-if-boring book at least had some unkind words for teachers unions. Also my kids like him.” – Tim Cavanaugh

“Barack Obama, for two main reasons: The Republican Party, which has jettisoned its best inclinations and indulged its worst for the last eight years, richly deserves exile from the White House, and 2) because he shows an intelligence and temperament that suggest he will govern more pragmatically than ideologically” – Steve Chapman

“Barack Obama, since he’s a genuine leader, with a good program for cleaning up Washington, and will be very good for business.” – Craig Newmark

“Barack Obama, because he most exemplifies Reason and Free Minds (sorry, the country is in no mood for Freer Markets). The contrast between his discernment and eclecticism and the Republican ticket’s impulsiveness and idiot populism is vastly more important than any differences in their adherence to libertarian first principles.” – Steven Pinker

“Living in the District of Columbia, I see little reason to mar my as- yet unblemished record of nonvoting. But if I lived in Virigina or Florida, I’d be ticking the box for Obama —not because of any great affection for Hopey McChangeypants, but because I’m terrified of what happens to the Republican Party if eight years of military adventurism, unfettered executive power, and disregard for civil liberties aren’t utterly repudiated at the polls” – Julian Sanchez

“I’ll be voting for Obama, because I think as a nation we’re about to descend into a pile of hurt, and I want someone who is smart, pragmatic, and not prone to temper tantrums working to get us out of it as quickly as possible.” – John Scalzi

“I’ve got the luxury of a guilt-free, zero-impact vote in the District of Columbia, which I would cast for Bob Barr if he was on the ballot. Since he’s not, I’m voting for Barack Obama, the only remaining candidate whom I trust not to run the country (further) into the ground with stupid and erratic decisions, and who (miraculously for a Democrat) has run a less brain-dead, faux-populist campaign than the Republican.” – David Weigel

http://reason.com/archives/2008/10/29/whos-getting-your-vote