Tue, 28 Nov 2000 17:19:28 -0600
Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2000 17:19:28 -0600
Message-Id: <200011282319.RAA13797@server1.pjdoland.com>
To: klay@enron.com
From: David Theroux <DJTheroux@independent.org>
Reply-to: DJTheroux@independent.org
X-Mailer: Perl Powered Socket Mailer
Subject: THE LIGHTHOUSE: November 28, 2000

THE LIGHTHOUSE
"Enlightening Ideas for Public Policy..."
VOL. 2, ISSUE 46
November 28, 2000

Welcome to The Lighthouse, the e-mail newsletter of The Independent 
Institute, the non-partisan, public policy research organization 
<http://www.independent.org>. We provide you with updates of the Institute's 
current research publications, events and media programs.

-------------------------------------------------------------

IN THIS WEEK'S ISSUE:
1. Paul Craig Roberts Assails the Criminal Justice System
2. Californians Need More Electricity Deregulation, Not Less
3. Urban Riots and Small Business

-------------------------------------------------------------

PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS ASSAILS THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

The discovery that a Texas-based crime lab technician fabricated phony 
evidence used by criminal prosecutors to convict innocent people only adds to 
an already strong case against the American criminal justice system, 
according to Independent Institute Research Fellow Paul Craig Roberts.

"The criminal justice system has lost the ability to screen out unbalanced 
people who use their offices not to serve justice, but to serve bureaucratic 
success indicators such as conviction rates, propagandistic causes and tort 
lawyers. If truth be known, some of the worst criminals in the country are 
ensconced in the offices of the criminal justice system."

"The public was shocked to learn that the highly respected FBI Crime Lab was 
manufacturing false evidence to aid prosecutors. The public was shocked again 
when it was discovered that the Los Angeles Police Department had framed 
hundreds of people sent to prison.

"These injustices, committed by people whom society trusts to determine guilt 
and innocence, are not aberrations. If the premier crime lab and a premier 
police department are corrupt, you can imagine the situation elsewhere. And 
indeed, wherever we look we witness the cruelty of a bureaucratized system 
driven not by justice but by conviction rates."

For more, see "How Justice Was Lost," by Paul Craig Roberts, at
http://www.independent.org/tii/lighthouse/LHLink2-46-1.html.

See also Bruce Benson's suggestions for reforming the criminal justice system 
in the Independent Institute book, TO SERVE AND PROTECT: Privatization and 
Community in Criminal Justice (The Independent Institute, 1999), at 
http://www.independent.org/tii/lighthouse/LHLink2-46-2.html.

-------------------------------------------------------------

CALIFORNIANS NEED MORE ELECTRICITY DEREGULATION, NOT LESS

The huge jump in electricity rates in parts of California last summer caused 
many to believe that the state's deregulation of the electric power industry 
was a mistake. In response, the state's "Independent System Operator" (ISO), 
the quasi-government agency that manages electricity transmission, imposed 
short-term price ceilings on wholesale electricity rates; its renewal of the 
price caps last month, extending indefinitely, appears to be the beginning of 
electricity re-regulation.

However, the ISO's price caps ensure that Californians will face future 
problems, writes Scott Esposito, public affairs intern at The Independent 
Institute, in a new op-ed.

"The ISO's price caps are a case of a remedy that is far worse than the 
disease," writes Esposito. "By capping the price that generators may sell 
their electricity at $250 per megawatt hour, the ISO,s proposal would make 
California a market that no sane generator would enter. Why sell electricity 
in California for, at most, $250 per megawatt hour, when you can sell it in 
New York for up to $1300 per megawatt hour?"

Californians would be better served by abolishing the ISO and opening 
electricity transmission to the free market, thereby encouraging the 
development of new transmission capacity, Esposito argues.

"Massive rate hikes leading to $400 August electricity bills in San Diego, 
and extensive blackouts in San Francisco, have made utility deregulation look 
like a mistake. However, the real mistake lies not with utility deregulation 
per se but with its incomplete execution."

For more, see "Californians Need More Electricity Deregulation, Not Less," by 
Scott Esposito, at
http://www.independent.org/tii/lighthouse/LHLink2-46-3.html.

For more on electricity deregulation, see "Of Stranded Costs and Stranded 
Hopes," by Fred S. McChesney (THE INDEPENDENT REVIEW, Spring 1999), at
http://www.independent.org/tii/lighthouse/LHLink2-46-4.html.

-------------------------------------------------------------

URBAN RIOTS AND SMALL BUSINESSES

Despite pleas by the Bush and Gore camps that their supporters abide by the 
rule of law (if only they could agree on *which* election rules and court 
rulings are applicable), the election mess may turn decidedly uglier -- 
especially if Florida's presidential vote is sent to the Florida Legislature, 
a possibility described in last week's LIGHTHOUSE.

That's why it is imperative that Ralph Nader, Jesse Jackson, sundry agit-prop 
talk show personalities, and other self-appointed spokespersons for the 
"disenfranchised," voice their commitment to civic order.

The lesson of the urban riots of the 1960s is instructive.

The long, hot summers of 1965 to 1968 saw more than three hundred riots, 
resulting in two hundred deaths and the destruction of several thousand 
businesses, according to historian Jonathan J. Bean, writing in the fall 
issue of THE INDEPENDENT REVIEW. Egged on by ideologues, rioters looted 
unprotected stores to the chant of "burn, baby, burn."

After the rioting stopped, a cottage industry of politicians, academics and 
celebrities explained away the mob violence by dwelling on the rioters' 
"context." But the injustices suffered by the mobs' victims were completely 
ignored, and some inner-city neighborhoods never recovered, as evidenced by 
the hackneyed image of politicians visiting blighted inner cities and 
promising, if elected, to do for it what his opponent cannot.

If political operatives in the current election mess wish to cultivate an 
image of statesmanship before things get too ugly they could, as Bean 
implores policymakers to in general, "delegitimize 'political' violence by 
refusing to romanticize the actions of a lawless mob."

For Jonathan Bean's article, ",Burn, Baby, Burn,: Small Business in the Urban 
Riots of the 1960s" (THE INDEPENDENT REVIEW, Fall 2000), see
http://www.independent.org/tii/lighthouse/LHLink2-46-5.html.

For an updated version of "Presidents, Courts, and the 'Political Questions 
Doctrine,'" by Rob Latham, public affairs director of The Independent 
Institute, see
http://www.independent.org/tii/lighthouse/LHLink2-46-6.html.

-------------------------------------------------------------

If you enjoy receiving THE LIGHTHOUSE ... please help us support it.

Your supporting Independent Associate Membership enables us to reach 
thousands of other people. So, please make a contribution to The Independent 
Institute. See http://www.independent.org/tii/lighthouse/LHLink2-46-7.html to 
donate, or contact Ms. Priscilla Busch by phone at 510-632-1366 x105, fax to 
510-568-6040, email to <PBusch@independent.org>, or snail mail to The 
Independent Institute, 100 Swan Way, Oakland, CA 94621-1428.
All contributions are tax-deductible.  Thank you!

-------------------------------------------------------------

For previous issues of THE LIGHTHOUSE, see
http://www.independent.org/tii/lighthouse/LHLink2-46-8.html.

-------------------------------------------------------------

For information on books and other publications from The Independent 
Institute, see
http://www.independent.org/tii/lighthouse/LHLink2-46-9.html.

-------------------------------------------------------------

To subscribe (or unsubscribe) to The Lighthouse, please go to 
http://www.independent.org/subscribe.html, choose "subscribe" (or 
"unsubscribe"), enter your e-mail address and select "Go."

Copyright , 2000 The Independent Institute
100 Swan Way
Oakland, CA 94621-1428
(510) 632-1366 phone
(510) 568-6040 fax
info@independent.org
http://www.independent.org