Quote of the Day - Jerry Pournelle

Commenting on this piece, where a former Register of Copyrights Ralph Oman recommends that, as the article put it, any new technology should be illegal until proven otherwise:

The United States was formed to protect liberty. It now has a major party that is afraid that someone, somewhere, is doing something without permission.

I am reminded of a quote from Randy Barnett from his book Restoring the Lost Constitution:  The Presumption of Liberty:

Had judges done their job, this book would not need to be written. Since adoption of the Constitution, courts have eliminated clause after clause that interfered with the exercise of government power.

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Without these missing clauses, the general scheme of the Constitution has been radically altered, which is precisely why they all had to go. The Constitution that was actually enacted and formally amended creates islands of government powers in a sea of liberty. The judicially redacted constitution creates islands of liberty rights in a sea of governmental powers.

And that sea is continually rising.