December 16, 2007
Libertarian Derangement Syndrome
The Associated Press had a useful article the other day about California Attorney General Jerry Brown's ongoing climate change lawsuit against automakers. The central idea here is that carbon emissions from automobiles constitute a "public nuisance."
Although these suits do pose some interesting legal problems, they do not represent a major doctrinal change--at least for the plaintiffs. The people who are turning themselves in ideological knots are their opponents, such as the libertarian Pacific Legal Foundation:
"We disagree with the way he's using the courts to set national social and environmental policy," said Dave Stirling, vice president of the Sacramento-based Pacific Legal Foundation.The Democratic attorney general is "trying to force certain types of solutions on very difficult problems" that should be handled by Washington lawmakers, Stirling said.
Funny--I always thought that libertarians were opposed to top-down regulation by "Washington lawmakers." When confronted with overwhelming scientific evidence that anarchic markets cannot solve a problem, they are reduced to undermining their own world view.
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