“Like the inhabitants of other formerly free societies, Americans are content to define ‘freedom’ in terms of those liberties we are permitted to exercise. Yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller is perfectly in harmony with this self-defeating concept of ‘freedom.’ It is entirely appropriate that the decision was written by Antonin Scalia, the most reliably authoritarian and consistently liberty-aversive member of the Court. With an air of regal condescension, Scalia allows that the Second Amendment acknowledges and protects an individual right to armed self-defense. He then explicitly limits the extent to which that ‘right’ can be exercised, thereby redefining it as a State-conferred privilege.” 906/27/08)