Guest Post: The very strange history of the Easter Bunny

by Katie Edwards, University of Sheffield

While you’re biting the heads off your chocolate bunnies this weekend, you might wonder how cartoon rabbits became so central to our Easter celebrations. It’s tempting to assume that because there’s no biblical basis for the Easter Bunny, rabbits and hares have no religious significance – but that’s just not the case.

Also available in chocolate.
Shutterstock

Leviticus 11:6 states that the hare is an unclean animal: “The hare, for even though it chews the cud, it does not have divided hoofs; it is unclean for you”“, but in Christian art, it is regularly associated with rebirth and resurrection.

In fact, the symbol of a circle of three hares joined by their ears has been found in a number of churches in Devon. Like much of our cultural "bunny” symbolism, the meaning of this image remains mysterious – and The Three Hares Project has been set up to research and document occurrences of the ancient symbol, examples of which have been found as far away as China.

Rabbits and hares have also been associated with Mary, mother of Jesus, for centuries. Their association with virgin birth comes from the fact that hares – often conflated mistakenly with rabbits – are able to produce a second litter of offspring while still pregnant with the first.

Virginity or fertility?

Titian’s painting The Madonna of the Rabbit depicts this relationship. Mary holds the rabbit in the foreground, signifying both her virginity and fertility. The rabbit is white to convey her purity and innocence.

Linking rabbits with purity and virginity is odd, however, since they’re also associated with prolific sexual activity, a reputation Hugh Hefner appropriated for his now infamous Playboy logo. Hefner claims that he chose a rabbit as the logo for his empire because the bunny is “a fresh animal, shy, vivacious, jumping – sexy. First it smells you, then it escapes, then it comes back, and you feel like caressing it, playing with it. A girl resembles a bunny. Joyful, joking.”

Symbolic bunnies.
Shutterstock

Hefner’s striking sexism aside, rabbits’ reputation for fecundity has also meant that they’ve been used as a symbol of fertility for centuries and have become associated with spring.

Ye olde Saxon mythe

Indeed, some folklorists have suggested that the Easter Bunny derives from an ancient Anglo-Saxon myth, concerning the fertility goddess Ostara. The Encyclopedia Mythica explains that:

Ostara is the personification of the rising sun. In that capacity she is associated with the spring and is considered a fertility goddess. She is the friend of all children and to amuse them she changed her pet bird into a rabbit. This rabbit brought forth brightly coloured eggs, which the Greek goddess gave to children as gifts. From her name and rites the festival of Easter is derived.

Indeed, in his 1835 book Deutsche Mythologie, Jacob Grimm states that “the Easter Hare is unintelligible to me, but probably the hare was the sacred animal of Ostara … Ostara, Eástre seems therefore to have been the divinity of the radiant dawn, of upspringing light, a spectacle that brings joy and blessing, whose meaning could be easily adapted by the resurrection-day of the Christian’s God.”

Nuremberg Chronicle’s depiction of the Venerable Bede.
Wikimedia Commons

The myth of Ostara, then, has become a popular theory for the derivation of the Easter Bunny – although it is a contested one. Either way, it seems that the association between the Easter Bunny and Ostara began with the 8th-century scholar the Venerable Bede in his work The Reckoning of Time. Bede said that our word “Easter” stems from “Eostre” (another version of the name “Ostara”). There is, however, no other historical evidence to support his statement.

Modern bunnies

The earliest reference to an egg-toting Easter Bunny can be found in a late 16th-century German text (1572). “Do not worry if the Easter Bunny escapes you; should we miss his eggs, we will cook the nest,” the text reads. A century later, a German text once again mentions the Easter Bunny, describing it as an “old fable”, and suggesting that the story had been around for a while before the book was written.

From Germany with love.
Shutterstock

In the 18th century, German immigrants took the custom of the Easter Bunny with them to the United States and, by the end of the 19th century, sweet shops in the eastern states were selling rabbit-shaped candies, prototypes of the chocolate bunnies we have today.

So whether bunnies are unclean, symbols of prolific sexual activity, or icons of virginity, the enigmatic Easter Bunny looks likely to remain a central part of Easter celebrations – recently, one was even involved in a surreal mass brawl in a New Jersey shopping centre. Just where they came from, however, will probably have to remain a mystery. At least for now.

Katie Edwards, Director, SIIBS , University of Sheffield

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

From the Archives: Charlottesville-area Libertarians use 2011 Tax Day to argue against taxes

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on April 15, 2011. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Charlottesville-area Libertarians use 2011 Tax Day to argue against taxes
April 15, 2011 12:14 AM MST

Each month members of the Jefferson Area Libertarians, a local division of the Libertarian Party of Virginia, meet for a social hour at West Main Restaurant in Charlottesville.

This month the meeting took place on the eve of the traditional date for Americans to complete their federal tax returns. (The Internal Revenue Service has extended this year's deadline from Friday, April 15, to Monday, April 18.)

James Curtis, treasurer of the Libertarian Party of Virginia (LPVA), and Jim Lark, secretary of the Jefferson Area Libertarians (JAL), will be guests on April 15 on The Schilling Show on WINA (1070 AM) to talk about tax policy. The two activists gave the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner an exclusive preview of the topics they will address on the radio Friday afternoon.

‘Grossly overtaxed’
Lark said he plans to talk about “the nature of what taxes are and the extent to which most libertarians feel that we are grossly overtaxed.”

The government, Lark explained, does many things it “should not be doing and we’re paying for those. There are many things that, even if government should be doing them – and that’s debatable – we’re still paying too much.”

Lark said he and Curtis will try to convey to Rob Schilling's listeners “the idea that perhaps we can cut the cost of government substantially. We can cut taxes; we can cut spending substantially.”

For his part, Curtis said that one point he wants to make is that there has been “a lot of discussion lately that the federal government’s not experiencing an income issue, it’s more of a spending matter. I politely disagree with that. I think it is a revenue issue also.”

Curtis explained that he thinks “the federal government actually takes in too much revenue” and it is “taxing us too aggressively, putting too much strain on the economy.”

How to transform the tax system
Offered a “magic wand” that could transform the country’s tax system, Lark and Curtis gave similar but not identical wish lists.

“If they give the magic wand to me,” Lark said he would get rid of the tax system “entirely” and instead would like to see “a society where taxes look more like user fees or something like that, where people actually pay for goods and services” that they use.

Given “a less powerful magic wand,” however, Lark said he would “probably go to some sort of flat-tax scheme at a very low rate.”

Curtis said that he would “repeal the individual and corporate income taxes and payroll taxes. Individual taxes are theft.”

Under those circumstances, he explained, “government would have to do without most of its unconstitutional programs,” while remaining programs “would have to be put into its reduced budget.”

He noted that much of the federal government’s revenue comes from “excise taxes, tariffs, and such” and that many people have a misconception that “if we got rid of the income tax, the federal government would go out of business.”

Curtis pointed out, however, that individual income taxes only constitute about 32 percent of federal revenues, “so we’re potentially talking about cutting the budget by a third if we repeal the income tax.”

What about the Fair Tax?
Both Curtis and Lark are reluctant to endorse the Fair Tax, a consumption tax popularized by nationally syndicated radio host Neal Boortz and former Georgia Congressman John Linder, designed to replace the income tax.

“I’ve always been a friendly skeptic about the Fair Tax,” said Lark. “I certainly understand what they’re trying to do and I’m very sympathetic to a lot of the ideas that motivate it, but I’m not sure that it would be a step in the right direction.”

Noting that he has “a lot of friends who are major Fair Tax enthusiasts,” Lark conceded that “if it were passed, it very well may be an improvement over what we now have,” but his own preference is to “move in a different direction.”

To Curtis, the Fair Tax is “better than what we have now but the polite way to put it is I’m not a fan.”

Tax Day Rallies
The Jefferson Area Libertarians will be participating in two events marking Tax Day 2011.

On Friday at 5:00 p.m., the group’s chairman, John Munchmeyer, will speak at a rally at the Free Speech Monument on Charlottesville’s downtown mall, sponsored by the Jefferson Area Tea Party.

On Monday, from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m., JAL will have its own educational demonstration outside the main Charlottesville Post Office on Route 29 North, hoping to reach local taxpayers as they drop their income tax returns into the mail box.

From the Archives: Thomas Jefferson Center announces 2010 Muzzle Awards

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on April 13, 2010. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Thomas Jefferson Center announces 2010 Muzzle Awards
April 13, 2010 12:37 AM MST

Each year since 1992, the Charlottesville-based Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression (tjcenter.org) has presented the "Jefferson Muzzle Awards" to individuals or entities that have most egregiously offended freedom of speech and of expression. For the most part, award winners have been city or state governments or government agencies at every level, from Capitol Hill to school districts.

Today's announcement of the Muzzles coincides with Thomas Jefferson's birthday. He was born near Charlottesville on April 13, 1743.

Top 2010 Winner

The top winner for 2010 is U.S. Representative Alan Grayson of Florida, who tried to get the U.S. Attorney General to prosecute some of his constituents who made fun of him on a web site. Reacting to Grayson's complaint, the Thomas Jefferson Center wrote:

"Rep. Grayson’s urging the U.S. Attorney General to seek a 5 year prison sentence against a vocal critic for minor transgressions that, even if proven, clearly merits censure. The right to criticize public officials without fear of government reprisal is a fundamental component of the First Amendment. As such, elected officials should both expect and tolerate criticism."

Virginia's Winner
Although not as high up on the list, the Virginia Department of Corrections was also a Muzzle Award winner this year.

In this case (ranked ninth on the list of ten top winners), prison officials denied an inmate access to a CD recording of a religious sermon called "Life Without a Cross." The Department of Corrections was criticized by others at the time, including editorial writers for the Charlottesville Daily Progress, but the Thomas Jefferson Center's criticism was sharp:

"...it is difficult to see what purpose is served by a blanket policy censoring all spoken word CD’s while allowing musical CD’s. Indeed, it would seem that many spoken CD’s might better serve to encourage good behavior on the part of prisoners both while they are serving their sentences and after they are released."

The award citation notes that, in the months since this situation came to light, the Department of Corrections has changed its policy but -- as the Muzzle citation notes -- "there is nothing to bind the Department to staying on this course"

Other 2010 Muzzles
Another eight winners were cited as deserving of 2010 Jefferson Muzzle Awards, including the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, for censoring a nostalgic label on a wine bottle; the Oklahoma Tax Commission, for barring a driver from purchasing a vanity license tag with the phrase "IM GAY," claiming the words are "offensive"; and the Texas State Legislature, "for "denying motion picture production companies tax breaks if their proposed movies portray Texas or Texans in a negative fashion."

The full list of 2010 winners, plus archives of past Muzzle recipients, can be seen on the web site of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression.

From the Archives: Meadowcreek Parkway and suggestions to improve transportation policy making

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on April 12, 2010. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.


Meadowcreek Parkway and suggestions to improve transportation policy making
April 12, 2010 6:10 PM MST

The Meadowcreek Parkway, which would link Rio Road in Albemarle County to the Route 250 Bypass and McIntire Road in Charlottesville, came a step closer to being built today.

Sean Tubbs of Charlottesville Tomorrow reports:

“The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has released a new draft of a key document required for the approval of an interchange to connect the Meadowcreek Parkway to the U.S. 250 bypass.

“Because several historic and cultural resources will be affected by the interchange’s construction, the project is being reviewed by the FHWA as part a review process known as Section 106.”

The Meadowcreek Parkway was first proposed more than 40 years ago and has been a subject of public controversy in Charlottesville since then. In fact, candidates’ positions on the Meadowcreek Parkway have often been key issues in City Council races over the past four decades.

The long decision making process over the Meadowcreek Parkway may be instructive for how transportation policy in Virginia is devised and implemented.

In an exclusive interview with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner last Friday, Dr. Ronald Utt of the Heritage Foundation offered some suggestions for how Virginia can improve its process of transportation policy making:

“First of all,” Utt said, “we’ve argued, both to [Governor Bob] McDonnell and to anybody who would listen over the last several years,” that Virginia should “establish a performance-based measuring system in which congestion mitigation and travel time are the measures by which you choose projects, while at the same time holding harmless the regional distribution.”

That means, Utt explained, that investments “within the Northern Virginia transportation district [for example] would then have to be ranked by their impact on traffic congestion.”

The problem, he noted, is that “right now you don’t have that. A lot of these things are political. Senior Members of Congress get to get interchanges; influential businesses get interchanges. There are no standards by which we can judge one project from the other.”

This has an impact on budgetary as well as policy decisions, Utt concluded:

“We’ve argued that in a time of fiscal stringency, when a lot of worthy projects under any circumstances are being rejected for a lack of money, then it’s all the more important to prioritize projects by some measures that people can understand and agree on. I would say congestion, travel time, and safety would be those three key criteria.”

From the Archives: 2012 Jefferson Muzzles bestowed for censoring speech, expression

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on April 11, 2012. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

2012 Jefferson Muzzles bestowed for censoring speech, expression
April 11, 2012 10:29 PM MST

As it has done each year for the past two decades, the Charlottesville-based Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression has handed out its Jefferson Muzzles to government officials and agencies who stretch their authority and stifle to speech of American citizens.

The Center is also the sponsor of the First Amendment Monument on Charlottesville’s downtown mall, which is sometimes ruefully called the “Free Speech Memorial.”

This year’s Muzzle winners – who may or may not accept their awards graciously – were listed in a news release made available just after midnight on April 12, one day before the birthday of the namesake of the Thomas Jefferson Center:

*The Florida Legislature and Florida Governor Rick Scott for passing the Firearm Owners’ Privacy Act, a law restricting what Florida physicians may say to their patients regarding guns and gun safety.

*The U.S. State Department for rescinding the invitation to a Palestinian cartoonist to participate in a conference focusing on free speech because some of his cartoons were deemed to be anti-Semitic.

*Sam Houston State University (Texas) Professor Joe Kirk and the University Police Department for their respective actions involving a temporary campus “free speech wall” on which students were invited to write whatever they wanted. Professor Kirk literally cut the “F-word” from the wall where it was utilized to criticize President Obama. The university police then threatened to arrest any students who attempted to write the offending word again.

*Mayor Wayne Garner of Carrollton, Georgia for unilaterally canceling a previously-approved community theater production of The Rocky Horror Show at a publicly-owned venue. The show was in rehearsal when a cast member posted a video clip on his personal Facebook page. When the Mayor saw the clip, he canceled the already advertised production.

*The Administration of Catawba Valley Community College in North Carolina for banning a student from campus after he criticized via Facebook the school’s partnership with Higher One Financial Services and the aggressive marketing of a CVCC branded Debit Mastercard.

*Salem, Missouri Public Library’s Board of Trustees for using filtering software on library computers that classified many non-mainstream religious websites as “occult” or “criminal,” thereby blocking access to the sites.

*Lake of the Ozarks Camdenton R-III School District in Missouri for using filtering software on school computers that blocked access to many websites advocating equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people while comparable anti-gay websites were not blocked.

There were also two Virginia winners, including one that received a “Lifetime Achievement Muzzle”:

*The Norfolk, Virginia, Police Department for arresting and prosecuting a man for filming an on-duty police officer sitting in his car, claiming the man had to have the officer’s permission.

*The Virginia Department of Corrections for preventing an inmate from receiving a spoken word CD of works by Dylan Thomas because of a policy that permits only approved music and faith-based spoken word CDs. This is the third consecutive Muzzle for the VDOC, having previously been censured in 2010 for restricting access to religious spoken word CDs, and in 2011 for denying prisoners’ access to “The Jailhouse Lawyer’s Handbook,” a work detailing the legal rights of prisoners.

It was the Virginia Department of Corrections that received only the third lifetime Muzzle in the history of the awards. The others have been given to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, in 1999, and the Federal Communications Commission, in 2008.

Suggested Links

Thomas Jefferson Center announces 2010 Muzzle Awards
Porn king Larry Flynt defends free speech in Charlottesville
Josh Wheeler discusses ‘Hustler v. Falwell’ as bulwark for free speech
Charlottesville lawyers compile rules against ‘politically correct’ Xmas
Highlighting free-speech worries, Virginia politicians disagree on SOPA

From the Archives: Heritage Foundation's Ronald Utt discusses commercialization of highway rest areas

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on April 11, 2010. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Heritage Foundation's Ronald Utt discusses commercialization of highway rest areas
April 11, 2010 3:01 PM MST

In 2009, the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) closed down about half of the rest areas along interstate highways as a cost-cutting measure. The decision was controversial, and as a candidate for governor, Bob McDonnell made reopening the rest areas one of his most emphatic promises. As governor, McDonnell followed through and the rest areas began to be opened again last month.

One of the issues raised last summer was a federal prohibition on commercial activity at interstate rest stops, which is not universal but nearly so and includes Virginia. On July 17 – just days before the rest areas were scheduled to close on July 21 -- Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA10) introduced an amendment to the transportation appropriations bill, which was killed in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on a vote of 26(Yea)-32(Nay).

After he spoke at a Cato Institute briefing on transportation issues on Capitol Hill on April 9, Dr. Ronald Utt answered a few questions about the history of this prohibition and the reasons that highway rest areas are closed to business activity.

Early History

The prohibition “literally goes back to the creation of the interstate highway system,” said Utt, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, “where you already had existing interstate routes, like Route 1 on the East Coast, that had a lot of commercial development around it that was dependent on the traffic.” There was a perception that “the creation of an alternative highway system right nearby would have threatened the business of those people if there were new commercial establishments started.”

In response, supporters of the interstate system tried to “neutralize opposition … from the existing commercial people” by deciding “that there would be no commercial activity on any of the rest stops. Nothing would be sold -- no gasoline, no food, no motels .... And that essentially bought them off.”

Utt pointed out that today, “most of those businesses that were protected have gone out of business a long time ago. Fast food restaurants didn’t exist back then but they tend to be the largest and most active opponents of commercialization of federal rest stops because they’re the ones who now own the land and the businesses at existing interchanges.”

Local Ownership

Asked whether local businesses could be given “dibs” on taking over the rest stops, Utt replied:

“Exactly. The right of first refusal could go to [anybody who] has something within, let’s say, 100 yards of an existing interchange. Whether it’s a gas station, a coffee shop, or a restaurant, the first round of bidding could be limited to them.”

Naming Rights

What about granting naming rights, where businesses could “sponsor” a rest stop?

Utt chuckled and said, “That’s a good question. I don’t know, given the state of the economy, how much people would pay for that. That’s obviously an idea.”

Then he continued with an illustration from a neighboring state.

“I’ve noticed at some of the North Carolina rest stops along I-95 that there is a certain amount of promotion by the people who provide free services or cut-rate services for those rest stops,” Utt said. “For example, in North Carolina I saw a brass plaque that’s displayed prominently that says ‘Landscape care and lawn care by such-and-such a company.’ So I’m assuming that they were either doing this for free for the exposure, or at a discount for the exposure.”

From the Archives: Bob Marshall cites ‘rainbow spectrum’ of support for his legislation

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on April 10, 2012. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Bob Marshall cites ‘rainbow spectrum’ of support for his legislation
April 10, 2012 11:27 PM MST

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bob Marshall cites three specific pieces of legislation when asked how he will earn the votes of libertarians.

Marshall is one of four candidates in a June 12 GOP primary that will select a nominee to face former Virginia Governor Tim Kaine in the fall. The winner in the November election will succeed Senator Jim Webb, who is retiring from Congress after one term.

In an interview on April 10 with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner, Marshall explained how he plans to attract the votes of libertarians in the primary (or, should he get that far, in the general election), he named “three things.”

Getting the libertarian vote

He noted that “Robert Dean, who heads the Libertarian Party of Tidewater, is 110 percent behind my preventive detention bill,” which was the General Assembly’s response to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and will likely be signed, with amendments, by Governor Bob McDonnell later this month.

He mentioned HB 10, a 2010 law he called “the anti-Obamacare bill” but which is also know by its formal title, the Virginia Health Care Freedom Act. That law was used by Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli in suing the federal government to overturn the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, one of the cases heard last month by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Marshall also cited “the anti-Real ID bill” he introduced in 2009, which responds to federal regulations about driver’s licenses and other identification cards.

“What I said in my bill is, If we cannot be certain that the encrypted data on those licenses is not secure, we’re telling the federal government, you’re on your own, we’re not participating.”

Summarizing, Marshall reiterated that he has “done three things that should appeal to people for whom liberty is a paramount concern and again, two of those passed into law, the third one is going to pass into law in a few days because the governor agreed to an amendment last night and I believe the House and Senate will accept that.”

Libertarians, he said, “are right to be concerned about liberty” and in these bills he “had support from John Birch and the ACLU,” two organizations that are “as far apart as you can get.”

He described that coalition as “really the rainbow spectrum” supporting legislation he introduced as a “conservative Republican.” To pass those measures, he said, “we dropped all our other differences – and they are considerable – to focus on this and we’ve succeeded.”

Oddfellows

Marshall also talked about political figures he admires.

Without hesitation, he listed “Jefferson, Madison, and Ronald Reagan” and then, in response to a question about politicians with whom he disagrees but nonetheless admires, he paused to think before naming Joe Morrissey, a Democratic member of the House of Delegates from Richmond.

“Joe Morrissey,” Marshall said, is his “exact, 180-degree opposite” but “he gets in as many fights as I do, I think for his own right reasons. We differ but we respect each other. In other words, I respect persons, not views. I think Joe’s crazy on some of his views. He thinks I’m crazy but amazingly we get along.”

Later. Marshall added that he also gets along with state Senator Adam Ebbin, the only openly gay member of the General Assembly. The two of them served together for several years in the House of Delegates before Ebbin, an Alexandria Democrat, was elected to the Senate.

In part one of this interview, Marshall discussed HB 1160, his state legislative response to the National Defense Authorization Act’s preventive detention provisions, and why he decided to run for the U.S. Senate in 2012.

Suggested Links

Bob Marshall on Virginia’s response to NDAA, why he aims for the Senate
Presidential hopeful Gary Johnson on health care, marriage, and Colbert
Congressman Scott Rigell on the challenge of reaching independent voters
Virginia Congressman Rob Wittman mulls GOP outreach to libertarians
Libertarian Party praises Virginia legislators for anti-NDAA bill

From the Archives: Bob Marshall on Virginia’s response to NDAA, why he aims for the Senate

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on April 10, 2012. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Bob Marshall on Virginia’s response to NDAA, why he aims for the Senate
April 10, 2012 7:16 PM MST

Delegate Bob Marshall is one of four candidates seeking the Republican nomination to succeed Senator Jim Webb in a primary election on June 12. In the 2008 U.S. Senate race, Marshall came within a few votes of defeating former Governor Jim Gilmore at a state GOP nominating convention.

Marshall is the author of HB 1160, a bill written in response to the passage last year of provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that permit the president to detain indefinitely, without trial, American citizens suspected of ties to terrorism. HB 1160 passed both chambers of the General Assembly with large majorities.

After the legislator spoke to a group of conservative political activists in Richmond on April 10, the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner asked Marshall about the significance of that bill, which is likely to get the General Assembly’s final approval later this month after it considers a few minor amendments from Governor Bob McDonnell.

Freedom or serfdom

“It’s the significance of being a free citizen and being a serf,” Marshall said.

“I introduced House Bill 1160, which was a response to a statute that Congress passed [NDAA] that basically said the President (or any president) can take American citizens off the streets, not charge them with anything, not give them opportunity for counsel, not go to trial, not face their accuser – this is unprecedented in American history and the ostensible reason was, ‘Well, there are people committing treason out here for al-Qaeda.’”

Rick Sincere and Bob Marshall

That reasoning, to Marshall, was insufficient justification for giving the President this new authority.

“The Constitution has a specific provision for how Congress is supposed to treat Americans charged with treason,” he explained, noting that James Madison in the Federalist Papers had “said Congress was limited in how it prosecuted treason because treason in England was a recipe for going after your political enemies.”

The Framers, he continued, wanted to restrict the authority of Congress with regard to treason.

“There is a constitutional remedy for treason,” Marshall said.

The NDAA provisions were passed by Congress despite reported objections by the Obama administration although, Marshall said, President Obama is “on both sides of this issue,” because while “he wanted any provision in there that prevented him from detaining people taken out,” when he signed the bill he said, “‘Well, I won’t use this power you’ve just given me.’ That’s hard to fathom.”

Why run for Senate?

With regard to his decision to run for the U.S. Senate this year, Marshall said that “the fact that I ran in 2008 and came so close was an incentive for me to consider it but I really couldn’t do it until after I ran the House of Delegates race” in 2011, where he was running in a district that was at half new to him.

In that campaign, he said, “I had to introduce myself to voters. I do this at the ground level, knocking on doors, and I didn’t want them to think that I’m just doing this as a stepping stone” to higher office.

Although Marshall had been in elected office for 20 years, many of his new constituents “didn’t know that,” so he postponed a decision about the Senate race until after he had secured his re-election to the House of Delegates.

After last year’s election, he added, “I called around the state to see” whether there would “be support for a candidate like myself. When I found out there was, I decided to enter it.”

In part two of this interview, Bob Marshall explains how he intends to earn the votes of libertarians and talks about political figures he admires.

Suggested Links

Libertarian Party praises Virginia legislators for anti-NDAA bill
Environmental activist David Rothbard says 'lift up people and nature together'
Virginia 5th District candidate John Douglass calls for ‘new policies’
Senate hopeful E.W. Jackson claims libertarian backing, unique qualities
Presidential hopeful Gary Johnson on health care, marriage, and Colbert

From the Archives: Environmental activist David Rothbard says 'lift up people and nature together'

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on April 10, 2012. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Environmental activist David Rothbard says 'lift up people and nature together'
April 10, 2012 6:00 AM MST

Since 1985, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) has tried “to promote market-based and technological solutions to issues relating to environment and development,” according to its cofounder and president, David Rothbard.

Rothbard recently spoke to the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner about CFACT, its mission, and its recent activities, including its outreach to college students across the United States.

CFACT’s offshoot organization, Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow, is actually a return to the parent group’s roots.

Rothbard and his colleague, executive director Craig Rucker, started CFACT in the 1980s as a community organizing project on college and university campuses.

Battling Nader

“We actually got our start battling Ralph Nader on the college campuses,” Rothbard explained, with its specific goal to counteract “the negative check-off of mandatory fees that Nader was collecting" from students.

"We helped stop that [practice] in a lot of states but then, in some of the states, they said, ‘Look, we’re going to continue funding Ralph Nader but if you want to have a separate organization that can compete in the marketplace of ideas, go ahead.’”

The eventual result was Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow, which began in 2001 and now has chapters on just over campuses in about 20 states. The group, Rothbard said, is “bringing a conservative message about environment and development to students across the country.”

The biggest issue on CFACT’s agenda for 2012 is energy, he said.

“There are those who would try to deprive us of the energy that supplies the most abundant, affordable energy for America,” Rothbard explained. “Things like coal and oil.”

CFACT supports renewable energy, he said.


“We think if it can compete in the marketplace, that’s great. If people can find ways to use solar and wind and other things, that’s great -- but the problem is when they’re trying to add on these costs to the most affordable, plentiful energy supply that we have in the name of science when there’s no good science to back it up. A lot of people will pay for that and that will not be good for our economy.”

Global warming

Another issue CFACT is addressing is climate change, although it does not resonate as it did a few years ago.

“Global warming has kind of faded a little bit,” Rothbard explained. “We’ve been in the midst of that battle now for, I guess, more than 20 years but as global warming’s faded, the agenda’s remained the same, which is energy suppression, but [that is] going under a different name, which is the promotion of green jobs and green energy.”

Asked what issue may be taking center stage 18 months from now, Rothbard did not hesitate to name sustainable development as “an issue that’s growing.”

He noted that grassroots groups are “beginning to hear about this thing called Agenda 21,” which is a plan supported by the United Nations and “major international environmental groups like Greenpeace and the Sierra Club.”

Agenda 21, he explained, “came out of the Rio Earth Summit that took place in Brazil in 1992. This June will be the 20th anniversary of that earth summit, taking place again in Rio.”

Along with Agenda 21, he said, “we’re starting to see this international push toward so-called sustainable development impacting local communities. It’s being pushed at the international level and that’s going to be an issue that’s growing in the coming 18 months.”

‘Make a difference’

Despite having run CFACT for more than a quarter century, Rothbard’s enthusiasm for the group’s activities is apparent when he describes plans for the near future.

“One of the reasons that we’re so excited about having a lot of students involved is,” he explained, that “we appreciate the fact that a lot of people care about the environment. They care about poverty, they care about public health, but we think it’s not enough just to care about it.”

Instead, he added, “we think you really need to be able to make a difference.”

Working with a board of scientific advisors, CFACT has been “able to promote positive, constructive solutions to these things.”

Moreover, he said, “we’re able to attract students from both sides, Republican and Democrat, liberal and conservative, because if you’re really interested in helping people, if you’re really interested in helping protect the earth, then what you [need] to do is promote prosperity for people,” and advocate policies “that will lift up people and nature together.”

Suggested Links

Charlottesville writer Christopher Horner examines environmental ‘Power Grab’
Questions for the President on the State of the Union
‘Big Roads’ author Earl Swift brings interstate story to Charlottesville
Grover Norquist discusses congressional government and GOP candidates
Belafonte criticizes Barack Obama on civil liberties in Charlottesville

From the Archives - Examiner.com exclusive - Randal O'Toole on Virginia high-speed rail

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on April 9, 2010. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

This was my fifth article published on Examiner.com. Eventually I wrote about 500 articles that appeared on the now defunct news site over the six years between April 2010 and June 2016. This is the one-hundredth from that archive to be republished here.

Examiner.com exclusive - Randal O'Toole on Virginia high-speed rail
April 9, 2010 5:10 PM MST


According to an article in the Richmond Time-Dispatch by Eugene Trani, former president of Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia has received more than $75 million in federal stimulus money to spend on high-speed rail between Richmond and Washington, D.C. The money will go toward improvements on 11.5 miles of track north of Fredericksburg. An additional $10 million will be used to improve a railroad bypass on the outskirts of Richmond.

The question of whether money used toward high-speed rail is well-spent was one of the topics addressed at a Cato Institute briefing on Capitol Hill on April 9, where transportation experts Randal O’Toole (a senior fellow at Cato) and Ronald Utt (a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation) spoke.

According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics and other federal sources, the cost per passenger mile for air travel is 13 cents, of which one-tenth of a cent is paid through federal subsidy. For automobiles, the cost per passenger mile is 23 cents, of which one-half of a cent is paid through taxpayer subsidy. For Amtrak, the cost per passenger mile is 56 cents, of which 22 cents is subsidized by taxpayers. For transit (e.g., light rail or subways), the cost per passenger mile is 85 cents, with 61 cents coming from tax funding.

After the program ended, O’Toole answered a few questions about the prospects for high-speed rail in Virginia.

He said that what the government wants to do is “to spend a lot of money running trains a little faster than they run today. We’re not talking about bullet trains. We’re talking about running trains at a top speed of 110 miles an hour, which means an average speed of about 70 miles an hour.”

Continuing, O’Toole noted, “That’s not going to get a lot of people out of their cars, but it is going to cost taxpayers a lot of money. We’re talking about spending a lot of money to get very little benefit for anybody.”

With regard to how best to spend federal stimulus money to improve transportation in Virginia, O’Toole said:

“I think the way to spend the money would be to give loans to states and local areas that would be repaid out of user fees. Because if a transportation project can be repaid out of user fees, we know it’s worthwhile, we know that users want it. But if it requires huge subsidies that the users are never going to come close to paying for, then we shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”

O’Toole, author of the 2010 book, Gridlock: Why We’re Stuck in Traffic and What to Do About It, recommended that people interested in more information about high-speed rail and related topics should visit his blog, The Anti-Planner, and the web site of the American Dream Coalition.

From the Archives: Five reasons to be a libertarian

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on April 8, 2010. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

This was my fourth article published on Examiner.com. Eventually I wrote about 500 articles that appeared on the now defunct news site over the six years between April 2010 and June 2016.

Five reasons to be a libertarian
April 8, 2010 9:15 PM MST

What does it mean to be a libertarian?

Members of the Jefferson Area Libertarians, who are active in and around Charlottesville, Virginia, meet monthly for a happy hour at West Main restaurant, to discuss current affairs and other topics.

At their meeting on April 8, several JAL members answered the questions: What does it mean to be a libertarian? What is the essence of libertarianism?

Here are five of their responses.

Personal and Economic Freedom

John Munchmeyer, chairman of the Jefferson Area Libertarians, explained how he discovered libertarian thought.

“I was reading a book by Harry Browne, Why Government Doesn’t Work, sitting at Dulles Airport, waiting for a flight, when I got to the part about health care and it was like a light bulb went on in my head. It was like, “oh my gosh, government can never solve the problems in health care because it caused them in the first place.”

The essence of libertarianism to Munchmeyer? “Libertarianism is when you believe in personal freedom and economic freedom.”

Respect for True Human Rights
James Curtis is treasurer of the Libertarian Party of Virginia. He said he thinks the essence of libertarianism is “respect for true human rights, recognition that each of us owns our self, that we have the right to do as we choose, that government exists (when we choose to form governments) to protect those rights.”

Liberty and responsibility
Jim Lark, secretary of the Jefferson Area Libertarians and former national chairman of the Libertarian Party, said that libertarianism “means that you believe in individual liberty, that individuals have rights, that they have the right to acquire property, that they have the right to the fruits of their labors. They cannot, however, violate the like rights of others and they must be held responsible for their actions.”

Non-Initiation of Force
Steve LaBianca, an alternate member of the Libertarian National Committee, said that libertarianism “is a political philosophy characterized by the absence of the initiation of physical violence, physical coercion, [or] physical force.” What that means personally, he said, is “to practice not coercing anybody for any reason whatsoever. Obviously, that means I can exert force in defense of myself, if I choose to (not necessarily required).”

He added: “In a political sense, it means institutions which also do not do that, which means governments specifically should not engage in the initiation of force, as well.

‘Leave Me Alone’
Albemarle County resident Tim Hulsey, who is not affiliated with any political party but who attends JAL happy hours for the intelligent conversation, summed things up in few words:

“I hate politics. I hate the way politics always comes around to bite me in the ass, and I want politics to be less important in my life.”

The Jefferson Area Libertarians meet on the second Tuesday of each month from 4:30 p.m to 6:30 p.m. at West Main Restaurant, 333 W. Main Street, in Charlottesville. For more information, visit www.4JAL.org.

From the Archives: Is 'income inequality' a serious problem?

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on April 7, 2010. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

This was my third article published on Examiner.com. Eventually I wrote about 500 articles that appeared on the now defunct news site over the six years between April 2010 and June 2016.

Is 'income inequality' a serious problem?
April 7, 2010 6:02 PM MST

One doesn’t expect The Sabre, a web site devoted to sports at the University of Virginia, to be a place to find long discussion threads about political and economic issues. Yet on March 30, a lively exchange of ideas ensued when one of its contributors posted a quotation from former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan: “Income inequality is where the capitalistic system is most vulnerable."

In his 1996 book, Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life, legal scholar and economist David Friedman wrote:

“When a psychiatrist wants to get his audience’s attention, he talks about sex. Economists talk about the income distribution. In both cases the audience’s interest is prurient (what are other people doing?), puritanical (that they shouldn’t be?), and personal (how am I doing?). In both, there is the thrill of violating taboo; although sex is gradually becoming an accepted topic of conversation, asking how much money someone makes is still beyond the pale.”

Though asking about someone’s income is still not permitted in polite conversation, it is not forbidden in political discourse. Members of Congress and political candidates talk about it all the time, sparking the question: Is “income inequality” something that should worry us?

George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen put the question in perspective in the New York Times. “What matters most is how well people are doing in absolute terms,” he wrote. “We should continue to improve opportunities for lower-income people, but inequality as a major and chronic American problem has been overstated.”

Fears about income inequality stem from a pre-modern understanding of economics, in which because some people “have,” others “have not.” In the pre-industrial, pre-capitalist world, this was largely true. If Midas had a lot of gold, it meant he was taking it from his subjects, who had no gold.

But the fabled Midas hoarded his gold; he neither spent it nor invested it. Today’s affluent people both spend and invest their earned incomes. They don’t hide it under their mattresses. As a consequence, they create products that fulfill our needs and wants, hire workers, and make other people wealthy in the process – or at least more wealthy than they would have been in the absence of spending and investment.

In his magnum opus, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises wrote:

“The inequality of incomes and wealth is an inherent feature of the market economy. Its elimination would entirely destroy the market economy.

“What those people who ask for equality have in mind is always an increase in their own power to consume. In endorsing the principle of equality as a political postulate nobody wants to share his own income with those who have less. When the American wage earner refers to equality, he means that the dividends of the stockholders should be given to him. He does not suggest a curtailment of his own income for the benefit of those 95 per cent of the earth’s population whose income is lower than his.”

In other words, “more wealth for me, but not for thee” is the principle at play.

Redistributing unequally distributed wealth would require one of two things:

One option is passing laws that forbid businesses from paying their employees – including high-level management, rock stars, and Oscar-winning actors and actresses – what they (the businesses) and the market think they are worth. That is, set ceilings on earnings.

The other option is to establish a system of confiscatory taxation that would take earnings from the person who earned it, in order to bring their income beneath an arbitrary ceiling, and give it to the government, which in turn will spend it on goods and services provided by other rich individuals and the companies they own. That is, rob Peter to pay Paul.

Commenting on the “economic consequences of confiscatory policies,” Mises wrote that “in the long run such policies must result not only in slowing down or totally checking the further accumulation of capital, but also in the consumption of capital accumulated in previous days. They would not only arrest further progress toward more material prosperity, but even reverse the trend and bring about a tendency toward progressing poverty.”

Put more simply, by constricting the capacity of the rich to create jobs and buy things, one ends up creating more unemployment and ultimately punishing the poor and middle classes.

In a PBS documentary film about his life, The Power of Choice, the late Milton Friedman said, “The society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither. The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both.”

That is a lesson well-learned by policymakers in Washington and in Richmond.

From the Archives: Will the U.S. Supreme Court uphold freedom of expressive association?

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on April 7, 2010. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

This was my second article published on Examiner.com. Eventually I wrote about 500 articles that appeared on the now defunct news site over the six years between April 2010 and June 2016.

Will the U.S. Supreme Court uphold freedom of expressive association?
April 7, 2010 3:22 AM MST

On April 19, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of Christian Legal Society v. Martinez. At issue is whether the University of California’s Hastings School of Law can force a student organization (the Christian Legal Society, or CLS) to accept members who do not share its core values.

The case resulted from the CLS’s preference to reserve membership to evangelical Christians who sign a statement affirming their religious and moral code, which includes a belief that sex outside of marriage is sinful and that homosexuality is also wrong.

Gay and lesbian students at Hastings objected to the CLS membership requirements, arguing that they were being excluded on the basis of their sexual orientation.

Adam Kissel Speaks at UVa
Last week at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Students for Individual Liberty and the Liberty Coalition jointly hosted a presentation by Adam Kissel of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a Philadelphia-based group that defends the First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, of the press, and of association on college campuses across the United States.

Kissel was asked about the CLS case. (See the accompanying video, below, for his full response.)

The rules at the Hastings School of Law, Kissel explained, say that “every student organization has to accept all comers … even if you completely disagree with the mission, even if you are joining it simply in order to thwart what it does and vote against all its policies … and vote in all your friends as leaders, it doesn’t matter.”

This has ramifications even for political organizations, he said, noting that the president of the college Democrats received a letter that said “she had to let anybody into her group, including campus Republicans, to be a voting member or a leader of her group, and she couldn’t have in her constitution” a provision saying that “only Democrats can be campus Democrats.”

Turning to the UVa students in the audience, Kissel said: “That sounds pretty ludicrous to you, I hope.”

Who Complained?
Kissel explained that the gay and lesbian group at Hastings, called “Outlaw,” filed a complaint against CLS, “saying ‘this group is discriminating against us’ and that kind of makes sense from a discrimination point of view. Only people who believe in discriminatory policy are allowed to be voting members. Not only that, there’s a whole category of people who are very, very unlikely to be self-hating so that, even though you’re saying it’s a matter of belief, it’s kind of also a matter of status."

Kissel illustriated his point by suggesting a fictional “Anti-Semitic Appreciation Society [that], if you’re Jewish, you’re very unlikely to be anti-semitic, so you’re kind of automatically excluded.”

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals accepted the argument of Outlaw and the Hastings administration and ruled that CLS had to accept gay and lesbian members, even if those people do not share the core values of CLS.

How did this get to the U.S. Supreme Court? Kissel explained that “the Seventh Circuit disagrees. Fourteen Attorneys General, including the Attorney General of Virginia, disagree.”

The Supreme Court took the case because there is divided opinion at lower judicial levels. What’s more, both sides can make a compelling case.

“So you have a very strong First Amendment group on one side,” Kissel said, “and you have a very strong anti-discrimination group on the other side. Both sides have reasonable arguments.”

The FIRE has submitted a friend-of-the-court brief in CLS v. Martinez, because the organization foresees broad and deep ramifications if the Supreme Court rules against CLS.

What Is at Stake?
“My feeling is,” said Kissel, “if the Supreme Court lets this rule through, it’s going to apply not just to universities having what I call ‘unconstitutional conditions’ (which is what the Attorneys General call it), but it means any city or state could have a non-discrimination rule that applies to every fraternal organization, every organization in the country. Basically, your First Amendment right to freedom of expressive association is thrown out the window.”

He went on to say that if CLS does not prevail, it “means that any other ‘content-neutral’ rule is going to also be accepted, if it’s furthering some kind of government interest. Government has lots of interests. So I’m pretty hopeful that the Supreme Court is going to do the right thing on this one.”

Further reading:

Amicus curiae brief of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
Amicus curiae brief of the Charlottesville-based Rutherford Institute
Amicus curiae brief of the libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute
Amicus curiae brief of Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty (GLIL)
Amicus curiae brief of 14 state attorneys general (including Virginia’s)