Small Government Book Fan Club discussion

This sci-fi novel was recommended to me by my local conservative librarian. It is, shall we say, an interesting choice.

I'm 90% sure, based on the writing, that the author is a Democrat and would not be surprised if he was a liberal. The major villain is, if I'm not mistaken, based on Rick Santorum (the author mentions no political parties in the novel but there are other clues). But in crating this story the author, apparently without realizing it, tapped into many of the issues that are important to conservatives and libertarians.

For example, the crisis that drives the story is the result of judicial activism. The phrase "judicial activism" is never used, but that is unmistakably what is going on.

The premise is heavily flawed but not altogether implausible given how the Supreme Court will sometimes join in with the other two branches in using the Constitution for toilet paper.

And that's the scenario here: that the Fourteenth Amendment was ruled to not apply to persons who elected to have a certain type of brain augmentation chip implanted.

A lower court soon after rules that contracts made by augmented persons are no longer legally binding and that they are legally denied the ability to enter into new contracts. The legal non-logic offered up again stretches the limited of the suspension of disbelief. If we move past that though we are dealing with another, very real issue, that of courts breaking valid legal contracts in the name of social justice. This is something we've seen, for example, being done following the mortgage metdown, with judges re-writing contracts between leaders and borrowers.

It then follows that there is a movement to get the technology banned altogether. This is exactly the kind of fascistic behavior we're constantly trying to fight. The attitude is unfortunately very topical, as one notes from this recent article:

http://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovati...

The short version is that the former Register of Copyrights, Ralph Oman, wrote the following, among other things, in an amicus brief:

"Whenever possible, when the law is ambiguous or silent on the issue at bar, the courts should let those who want to market new technologies carry the burden of persuasion that a new exception to the broad rights enacted by Congress should be established."

In other words, he says new technology should be considered illegal by default until Congress says otherwise.

Now a really big thing that I think the author just completely overlooked, was that this entire movement he envisioned against the augmented is driven by a demand for "fairness," the rallying cry of the left.

And the icing on the cake is that the entire augmented population was created by... a government welfare program established by Congress.

Now I'm only 20% of the way in, so there is plenty of time for this to go completely off the rails, but I understand why she recommended this novel.

Obviously left-wing authors sometimes hit on something good. More often than not, it ends up, as you put it, going off the rails. Case in point- a book I read recently called Unwind. Fascinating premise, but in the end completely improbable and the author could not help himself turning it further and further left as the story progressed.

Still, as conservatives, sometimes we are left with being satisfied with scraps of individualist thought here and there.

I'm mainly happy to see a (probable) lefty writing a novel about things that actually matter: the Constitution, the purpose of the government as protector of individual rights, the role of contracts in society and what happens if the government subverts it, etc.

Agreed. Take what we can get.

Chapter 7 ended with a news clipping describing how an innovative tech company was driven to relocate overseas due to US government regulations, costing us hundreds of (very nice) jobs as well as access to their technology.

Nice! I wonder if it's one of those liberal authors who has no idea what he created. I have discussed some of this in the "Do People Know What They Read?" thread.

Masha wrote: "Nice! I wonder if it's one of those liberal authors who has no idea what he created. I have discussed some of this in the "Do People Know What They Read?" thread."

I think so. Maybe he's one of those so-called "liberaltarians" but I doubt it.

Less than halfway through and I think it is already completely off the rails. The pro-amp human rights protesters are modeled after OWS.

And unfortunately it looks like we're going down the road of the crazy, anti-government American vet stereotype for at least one major character. And for a bit of the bizarre, that character's org is symbolized by a red star.

I'm looking for something different. I'll take a read. Thanks.