Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience…. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.

Frequently a [proposition] will [present itself], so to speak, in sheep’s clothing: [its undesirable consequences are] not immediately evident, and must be discerned by a careful and perceptive analysis. But this wolf comes as a wolf.

April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four.
—Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar

(Or three hundred and sixty-five, this year.)

An excellent and concise explanation of why the First Amendment, and freedom of speech more broadly and more generally, matters to me:

Much of the Court’s opinion is devoted to deprecating the closed mindedness of our forebears…. Closed minded they were–as every age is, including our own, with regard to matters it cannot guess, because it simply does not consider them debatable. The virtue of a democratic system with a First Amendment is that it readily enables the people, over time, to be persuaded that what they took for granted is not so, and to change their laws accordingly.

It’s taken years of following SCOTUS particularly, and the legal sphere more generally, for me to realize that of all the issues out there, freedom of speech is the one I care about most. Without it, we can’t actually argue about all the other issues that matter, persuading each other, learning from each other, and so on. It is necessary for representative democracy to be able to freely discuss everything and attempt to persuade each other, for us to have any chance at sound policy. The late Justice Scalia gets it exactly right in this quote.

(Speech implications aside: I have no immediate opinion on the legal question in the case as I only discovered it today. For the policy question — which too many people will confuse with the legal question — I would agree with the case’s outcome.)

Rest in peace, Justice Scalia. I’ll miss your First Amendment votes, from flag burning to content neutrality and forum doctrine to (especially, for the reasons noted above) political speech (if not always), among the votes you cast and opinions you wrote. Others less inclined to agree with you might choose to remember you (or at least should remember you) as the justice whose vote ultimately struck down California’s Proposition 8, even as (especially as) you considered the legal question argle-bargle. As Cass Sunstein recognized, you were “one of the most important justices ever”, and the world of law will be worse without you.

(In the spirit of freedom of speech, I generally post all comments I receive, as written. I hope to do the same for this post. But if I must, I’ll moderate excessively vitriolic comments.)

During at least five of the passengers’ phone calls, information was shared about the attacks that had occurred earlier that morning at the World Trade Center. Five calls described the intent of passengers and surviving crew members to revolt against the hijackers. According to one call, they voted on whether to rush the terrorists in an attempt to retake the plane. They decided, and acted.

At 9:57, the passenger assault began. Several passengers had terminated phone calls with loved ones in order to join the revolt. One of the callers ended her message as follows: “Everyone’s running up to first class. I’ve got to go. Bye.”

The cockpit voice recorder captured the sounds of the passenger assault muffled by the intervening cockpit door. Some family members who listened to the recording report that they can hear the voice of a loved one among the din. We cannot identify whose voices can be heard. But the assault was sustained.

In response, Jarrah immediately began to roll the airplane to the left and right, attempting to knock the passengers off balance. At 9:58:57, Jarrah told another hijacker in the cockpit to block the door. Jarrah continued to roll the airplane sharply left and right, but the assault continued. At 9:59:52, Jarrah changed tactics and pitched the nose of the airplane up and down to disrupt the assault.The recorder captured the sounds of loud thumps, crashes, shouts, and breaking glasses and plates. At 10:00:03, Jarrah stabilized the airplane.

Five seconds later, Jarrah asked,“Is that it? Shall we finish it off?” A hijacker responded, “No. Not yet. When they all come, we finish it off.” The sounds of fighting continued outside the cockpit. Again, Jarrah pitched the nose of the aircraft up and down. At 10:00:26, a passenger in the background said, “In the cockpit. If we don’t we’ll die!” Sixteen seconds later, a passenger yelled, “Roll it!” Jarrah stopped the violent maneuvers at about 10:01:00 and said, “Allah is the greatest! Allah is the greatest!” He then asked another hijacker in the cockpit, “Is that it? I mean, shall we put it down?” to which the other replied, “Yes, put it in it, and pull it down.”

The passengers continued their assault and at 10:02:23, a hijacker said, “Pull it down! Pull it down!” The hijackers remained at the controls but must have judged that the passengers were only seconds from overcoming them. The airplane headed down; the control wheel was turned hard to the right. The airplane rolled onto its back, and one of the hijackers began shouting “Allah is the greatest. Allah is the greatest.” With the sounds of the passenger counterattack continuing, the aircraft plowed into an empty field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 580 miles per hour, about 20 minutes’ flying time from Washington, D.C.

Jarrah’s objective was to crash his airliner into symbols of the American Republic, the Capitol or the White House. He was defeated by the alerted, unarmed passengers of United 93.

Snipped from irrelevant context:

<jorendorff> In this case I see nearby code asserting that IsCompiled() is true, so I think I have it right

Assertions do more than point out mistakes in code. They also document that code’s intended behavior, permitting faster iteration and modification to that code by future users. Assertions are often more valuable as documentation, than they are as a means to detect bugs. (Although not always. *eyes fuzzers beadily*)

So don’t just assert the tricky requirements: assert the more-obvious ones, too. You may save the next person changing the code (and the person reviewing it, who could be you!) a lot of time.