Latest Politics  

Latest Posts  |  Archive  | 

Libertarians for Giuliani?

by Ryan Sager
Wed, 30 May 2007 at 5:45 PM
updated Wed, 30 May 2007 at 5:48 PM

Print

Send

RSS

Share:

Not if my old boss at the Cato Institute, David Boaz, has anything to say about it:

Throughout his career, Giuliani has displayed an authoritarian streak that would be all the more problematic in a man who would assume executive powers vastly expanded by President Bush.

...

As mayor, Giuliani had many successes. Crime came down. He cut taxes and held down spending. But his prosecutorial personality sometimes threatened personal freedoms. He cracked down on jaywalkers and street vendors. His street crime unit used aggressive tactics to confiscate guns from city residents, resulting in wholesale searches and detentions of citizens, especially young minority males, and occasional tragedies like the shooting of the unarmed Amadou Diallo.

More:

When a police officer fatally shot another unarmed black man, Patrick Dorismond, Giuliani had police release Dorismond's sealed juvenile arrest record. The city later settled with Dorismond's family for $2.25 million.

And it should distress many conservatives that Giuliani took umbrage at affronts to his dignity, perhaps most notoriously when he tried to stop city buses from carrying a New York magazine ad saying the publication was "possibly the only good thing in New York Rudy hasn't taken credit for." The First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams notes in his book, "Speaking Freely," that "over 35 separate successful lawsuits were brought against the city under Giuliani's stewardship arising out of his insistence on doing the one thing that the First Amendment most clearly forbids: using the power of government to restrict or punish speech critical of government itself."

As a presidential hopeful, Giuliani's authoritarian streak is as strong as ever.

Related Topics: GOP Primary

Latest Politics Homepage