Under a new bill working through the Alabama Legislature, public librarians could soon face prosecution for providing minors with “harmful” materials. Critics say that the bill, which passed the state’s House of Representatives with a large majority, would force librarians to unnecessarily censor challenged books, or face misdemeanor charges. 

“This basically gives one person the ability to have a librarian arrested, as long as they can convince a warrant clerk that they’ve given notice and material is obscene,” Rep. Chris England (D–Tuscaloosa) said during a discussion of the bill on Thursday. “Does that make you comfortable?”

House Bill 385 updates an existing obscenity law “to provide that the use of any premises to distribute material that is obscene or harmful to minors is a public nuisance,” rendering violators open to misdemeanor charges. 

The current obscenity law is primarily focused on preventing minors’ access to adult film stores and adult entertainment businesses. H.B. 385 removes a provision that exempts public libraries and public K-12 school libraries from the law’s consequences—though college and university libraries are still exempt.

The bill also contains a provision that seemingly attempts to ban “drag queen story hour” and similar events with drag performers in public libraries by barring “any sexual or gender oriented conduct that knowingly exposes minors to persons who are dressed in sexually revealing, exaggerated, or provocative clothing or costumes, or are stripping, or engaged in lewd or lascivious dancing, presentations, or activities in K-12 public schools or public libraries where minors are expected and known to be present without parental presence or consent.”

Constitutionally unprotected obscenity has a widely accepted three-part legal definition—work that appeals to the “prurient interest,” “depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct,” and “taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” However, “material harmful to minors” is a much more vague legal concept. In the bill, it is defined similarly to the basic, three-pronged obscenity definition but with the condition that it is inappropriate for minors specifically. 

Courts have agreed that there can be some material that is obscene to minors but not adults, thus allowing states to enact laws banning minors from having access to some explicit material that otherwise would not meet the standard obscenity definition. 

It is unclear whether, upon a legal challenge, H.B. 385 would be treated as a permissible anti-obscenity law or if the bill’s language would be considered so vague as to seriously challenge protected speech. In July 2023, a judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking a similar law in Arkansas from going into effect. 

Those opposed to the bill argue that it could cause librarians to face unfair enforcement from community members seeking to ban controversial books.

“We are for the entire community. We have to be. We’ve got some books in here that are far right. We’ve got some books on the far left. But the library is for the entire community. We’ve got to stay in the middle as best we can, and they want to push us way off to the far right.” Craig Scott, president of the Alabama Library Association, told the Associated Press. “Why are they coming into libraries or thinking that they can come in and run the place better than us as professionals?” 

The post Alabama Bill Would Criminalize Librarians Who Allow 'Material Harmful to Minors' appeared first on Reason.com.

Recent conflicts over anti-Israel protests at college campuses highlight the ongoing relevance of issues I addressed in two posts written back in October, in the immediate aftermath of the horrific October 7 Hamas terrorist attack:

“Some Cancellations are Justified,” Oct. 15, 2023

“Far-Left Support for Hamas is not an Aberration” Oct. 30, 2023

The first explained why some “cancellations” of people with abhorrent views are justified, depending on the nature of the views, the type of job they are barred from, and whether stigmatization is likely to be an effective tactic in dealing with these ideologies.. I had in mind people who supported the Hamas terrorist attack and others with comparably awful views. which surely includes those current protest organizers who promote anti-Semitism and terrorism. But my reasoning also applies—perhaps with greater force—to people who go beyond expressing awful views by engaging in violence, disruption, and harassment, as some (though by no means all or even most) anti-Israel protestors have since October 7.

The post on the far left and Hamas explains why far-left support for Hamas terrorism is not an aberration, but rather is part of a long history of support for repression and mass murder by the likes of Lenin, Mao, and Castro. Many of these atrocities were on a far larger scale than anything Hamas has so far been able to pull off.

Obviously, not all anti-Israel protestors are far leftists. Some are radical Islamists or Arab nationalists.  Others just think Israel is using excessive force, or the like. Many more may be just hangers-on without much in the way of clear ideological commitments—”more Woodstock than Weathermen,” as my co-blogger David Bernstein puts it. Nonetheless, far-leftists (as I defined them in my post), are prominent among the leaders of disruptive protests that feature support for terrorism and anti-Semitism. Their influence on college campuses is far greater than in most other parts of society. We should not be surprised that adherents of an ideology that justifies terrorism, Gulags, and mass murder would not blanch at the kind of (fortunately) much lesser forms of violence and disruption that we see at some campus protests.

I should emphasize that both posts include a variety of caveats and distinctions. For example, it is not my claim that people with awful views should  be “cancelled” from employment of every kind. Much depends on the nature of the job in question. I also don’t claim that all left-wingers or anyone to the left of me qualifies as “far left” in the sense used in my post on that topic. In addition, there is a crucial distinction between private refusal to hire or otherwise associate with people, and government suppression of speech. Sadly, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s response to some of the campus protests in his state falls into the latter category, and thereby violates the First Amendment.

I will also take this opportunity to reiterate a point made in the post about the far-left, to the effect that various right-wing political movements also have awful histories of justifying atrocities, and of anti-Semitism. Having recently coauthored “The Case Against Nationalism,” and argued for the prosecution and disqualification of Donald Trump, I cannot easily be accused of being soft on reprehensible right-wing movements.

The posts include other qualifications and nuances, as well. This is is a set of issues where it is more than usually necessary to “read the whole thing,” and not just rely on headlines and social media rants.

But, caveats aside, the issues raised in both posts remain relevant. And that relevance is likely to continue, even after the current wave of unrest subsides. It probably won’t be the last time far-left awfulness manifests itself, or the last time we have to consider when and if cancellation is justified.

The post Two Posts Relevant to Current Campus Conflicts Over Israel and Hamas appeared first on Reason.com.

The latest trend in anti-sex action is carding people to watch porn online. After years of passing resolutions to declare porn a “public health crisis,” state lawmakers are coalescing on age-verification measures as a way to address this alleged scourge.

At issue is minors’ ability to access online pornography. Even when porn platforms technically require visitors to be age 18 or older, all minors usually have to do is check a box saying they’re adults and they’re in. Some parents and politicians want more stringent age-verification measures.

Enter laws requiring porn platforms to verify visitor ages. Such laws have already taken effect in at least eight states (Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Virginia), and bills to do the same were introduced in at least 11 other states in 2023. So far in 2024, legislators in at least seven states (Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, and Oklahoma) have introduced such porn age-verification bills. While the particulars vary, most would result in all visitors to web-based adult-content platforms having to submit a government-issued ID proving their age, either directly to the platform or through a third-party verification service.

Supporters of such measures say it’s no different than carding people in stores who try to buy age-restricted merchandise. But there’s a big difference between momentarily flashing your ID in front of a store clerk and submitting it to a website or app. The latter creates a record, permanently attaching real identities to online activity that many people would prefer stay private.

From a privacy perspective, there are better and worse ways to verify ages on websites. (And not just porn sites: Some legislators now want to require them for social media.) But even the best verification methods would leave people vulnerable to hackers and snoops—and we can’t count on authorities (or tech platforms, for that matter) to enact online age-verification measures in the best ways. These measures are shaping up to be a giant privacy nightmare.

And for what? Porn websites could get around laws such as Louisiana’s—which applies only to sites where more than a third of the content is “harmful to minors”—by padding their archives with nonpornographic content. Teenagers could get around state prohibitions by using a virtual private network to mask their location, visiting platforms based outside the U.S., or viewing porn on private message boards and the like.

Voluntary, tech-based ways to help parents prevent kids from visiting porn sites would be better. Perhaps rather than creating giant, privacy-infringing schemes, we should recognize that porn is a pervasive part of the digital ecosystem and that curiosity about sex is an undeniable part of adolescence. Stopping motivated teens from any exposure to online porn is impossible—but equipping teens to understand issues like consent, sexual safety, and personal vs. porn sex is not.

The post These States Want You To Show ID To Watch Porn Online appeared first on Reason.com.

A Belarusian court has sentenced the members of dissident rock band Nizkiz to two years of prison labor after finding them guilty of “organizing and plotting actions grossly violating public order.” After President Alexander Lukashenko won a sixth term in the country’s disputed 2020 election, mass protests broke out. Nizkiz released the song “Rules,” which became a protest anthem, and filmed the song’s music video at the site of one of those demonstrations. The government also placed the band on its official registry of extremists, effectively banning its music and making its fans targets for prosecution.

The post Brickbat: Stop the Music appeared first on Reason.com.

Capitalism and racism go together?

I hear it all the time.

“Racism is intricately linked to capitalism,” says famous Marxist Angela Davis. “It’s a mistake to assume that we can combat racism by leaving capitalism in place.”

“Anti-racist” activist Ibram X. Kendi says, “In order to truly be anti-racist, you also have to truly be anti-capitalist.”

This is just silly.

In my new video, Swedish historian Johan Norberg explains how free markets discourage racism.

Capitalists make a profit by serving their customers. The more customers they please, the more money they might make. It hurts the bottom line to exclude any groups.

“Look around the world,” says Norberg. “The least racist societies with the fewest expressions of racist attitudes are the most capitalist countries.”

Norberg’s new book The Capitalist Manifesto highlights a Journal of Institutional Economics study that found a correlation between economic freedom and “tolerance of ethnic groups.”

“Capitalism,” he says, “is the first economic system where you only get rich by opening up opportunities for others. It pays to be colorblind. It pays to be open to willing customers and workers who could enrich your company no matter what religion or race….It doesn’t mean that every person will be colorblind. There will always be idiots. But in capitalism, it’s costly to be an idiot.”

He reminds us that in the Jim Crow South, businesses fought racism, because the rules denied them customers.

“It’s often forgotten that owners of buses, railways, streetcars in the American South didn’t really segregate systematically until the late 19th century,” says Norberg. “It was probably not because they were less racist than others in the South, but they were capitalists. They wanted money, they wanted clients, and they didn’t want to engage in some sort of costly and brutal policing business in segregating buses.”

Even when segregation was mandated, some streetcar companies refused to comply. For several years after Jim Crow laws passed, black customers sat wherever they wanted.

Norberg adds, “Those owners of public transport, they fought those discriminatory laws because they imposed a terrible cost….They tried to bypass them secretly and fight them in courts. They were often fined. Some were threatened with imprisonment.”

The streetcar company in Mobile, Alabama, only obeyed Jim Crow laws after their conductors began to get arrested and fined.

Those business owners may have been racist—I can’t know—but they fought segregation.

“We got Jim Crow laws,” says Norberg, “because free markets weren’t willing to discriminate.”

Capitalists cared about green—not black or white.

Free markets all over the world coordinate and cooperate. Many don’t know of each other’s existence, and if they did meet, they might not get along. But they work together in search of profit.

It’s odd that socialists now call capitalism racist, when the opposite is more often true.

The Soviet Union invited African students to study science in major cities. But “Soviet citizens often treated the Africans in their midst with disdain and hostility,” New Lines magazine describes. Russian children’s books portrayed blacks in animalistic ways. Name-calling was common.

Today, China and Cuba claim to have “zero tolerance” for racism, but during the Covid pandemic, authorities forcibly tested blacks and ordered strict isolation. Landlords evicted African tenants. Businesses often refused to serve them.

In Cuba, Castro insisted he would eliminate racism. But “racism persists,” reports France 24, saying it’s “banned by law,” but “alive on the streets….In local jargon, a white woman with a black boyfriend is…’holding back the race.'” Cuba’s government is still instituting programs to “combat racism.”

It’s capitalism that makes people less racist.

COPYRIGHT 2024 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.

The post Capitalism Makes Society Less Racist appeared first on Reason.com.

When Congress impeaches and removes a federal official, the Constitution says, “the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to law.” While you might think that clause means impeachment and removal do not preclude criminal prosecution, Donald Trump’s lawyers say it means a former president can be prosecuted for abusing his powers only after he is impeached and removed.

That is the improbable crux of the argument that the U.S. Supreme Court will consider on Thursday in the federal case that charges Trump with illegally trying to remain in office after he lost the 2020 presidential election. If the Court accepts Trump’s claim that he “enjoys absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for his official acts,” it will be endorsing the proposition that presidents can escape accountability for crimes, no matter how egregious, provided they avoid conviction in the Senate based on the same conduct.

One way for a president to forestall that result is to commit crimes toward the end of his term in office. Trump, for example, was impeached for inciting the 2021 Capitol riot, but he was no longer president by the time the Senate weighed the case against him.

Many Republicans—including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.), who had castigated Trump for his reckless behavior before and during the riot—argued that it was not proper for the Senate to try a former president. Explaining his vote to acquit Trump, McConnell noted that the former president could still be held civilly or criminally liable for his role in the violent assault that interrupted congressional ratification of Joe Biden’s victory.

“We have a criminal justice system in this country,” McConnell said. “We have civil litigation. And former presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one.”

Trump’s lawyers say McConnell was wrong about that. Their argument also implies that Richard Nixon was wrong to worry that he might face criminal prosecution after resigning from office amid the Watergate scandal.

Nixon resigned after articles of impeachment were proposed but before the House voted on them. By Trump’s reasoning, he was free and clear of criminal liability at that point. Yet Gerald Ford, Nixon’s successor, granted him a pardon “for all offenses against the United States” he may have committed as president, and Nixon accepted that pardon.

According to Trump, a president can avoid prosecution by leaving office before the Senate can convict him or by hiding his crimes well enough that they are not discovered until after he leaves office. And since the Impeachment Judgment Clause is not limited to presidents, it would seem, so could “all civil officers of the United States,” contrary to the historical practice of prosecuting former federal officials who were never impeached.

Although there is no textual basis for treating former presidents differently in this respect, Trump argues that protection of executive power demands special leniency for them. Otherwise, he warns, the threat of frivolous, politically motivated prosecutions would have a paralyzing impact on presidential decisions.

As Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s legally dubious case against Trump shows, that threat is not entirely fanciful. Yet presidents have managed to do their jobs for many years despite this risk, undermining Trump’s claim that “a denial of criminal immunity would incapacitate every future President.”

A federal judge and a unanimous appeals court panel already have rejected Trump’s immunity claim. During oral arguments in January, D.C. Circuit Judge Florence Pan explored the implications of that claim by asking whether a president who “ordered SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival” but “was not impeached” could be prosecuted for that crime.

According to Trump’s position, the answer was clearly no: If that hypothetical president resigned immediately after the assassination order came to light, for instance, he could literally get away with murder. When a legal argument yields results as alarming as that, there is probably something wrong with its premises.

© Copyright 2024 by Creators Syndicate Inc.

The post The Alarming Implications of Trump's Immunity Claim appeared first on Reason.com.

In this week’s The Reason Roundtable, editors Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Nick Gillespie, and special guest Eric Boehm lament a horrible weekend for freedom, as Congress passed a collection of bad bills concerning military spending for Ukraine and Israel, a TikTok ban, and a reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

00:53—House of Representatives passes substantial bipartisan military spending aid package that includes Ukraine and Israel

22:50—New Title IX rules

34:00—Weekly Listener Question

41:03—House votes to reauthorize Section 702 of the FISA

48:29—This week’s cultural recommendations

Mentioned in this podcast:

“Democrats and Republicans Unite To Give Weapons Manufacturers $59 Billion,” by Matthew Petti

“Ukraine Crisis: U.S. Must Use Restraint,” by Nick Gillespie

“Should America keep funding Ukraine?” by Nick Gillespie and Zach Weissmueller

“Why Sanctioning Russia Will Fail,” by Nick Gillespie and Regan Taylor

“Hot Takes Are Making the Ukraine Invasion Worse,” by Nick Gillespie and Regan Taylor

“Steven Pinker: What Went Wrong at Harvard,” by Nick Gillespie

“Should America stop funding Israel’s war?” by Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe

“How much aid does the U.S. owe Israel?” by Robby Soave

“Hamas, Israel, and what it means for the U.S.,” by Nick Gillespie

“New Title IX Rules Erase Campus Due Process Protections,” by Emma Camp

“Laura Kipnis: How Colleges Criminalized Sex,” by Nick Gillespie

“The Guardians of Free Speech,” by Nick Gillespie

“If They Ban TikTok, Is Apple Next?” by Rand Paul

“TikTok Measure Passed by House Is Unconstitutional in Multiple Ways,” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

“Campus Rape Expert Can’t Answer Basic Questions About His Sources,” by Linda LeFauve

“How an Influential Campus Rape Study Skewed the Debate,” by Robby Soave

“The Politics of Campus Sexual Assault,” by Cathy Young

“Guilty Until Proven Innocent,” by Cathy Young

“Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Jones Act Traffic Jam,” by Eric Boehm

“Remy: Cabotage (Beastie Boys Jones Act Parody),” by Remy, Austin Bragg, Meredith Bragg, and John Carter

“Let’s Scrap the Jones Act,” by Andrew Heaton

“Appeals Court Rules That Cops Can Physically Make You Unlock Your Phone,” by Joe Lancaster

“How the FISA Reauthorization Bill Could Force Maintenance Workers and Custodians To Become Government Spies,” by Eric Boehm

Send your questions to roundtable@reason.com. Be sure to include your social media handle and the correct pronunciation of your name.

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The post Worst 4/20 Ever appeared first on Reason.com.

In October 2022, Angela Prichard was murdered by her estranged husband, Christopher Prichard. The crime wasn’t entirely unpredictable; Angela Prichard had repeatedly sought help from police months before she was killed. But officers did nothing, even ignoring Christopher Prichard’s repeated violations of a restraining order.

Angela Prichard’s family is now suing the city of Bellevue, Iowa, claiming that police inaction directly led to Angela Prichard’s death and deprived her of her due process rights.

In April 2022, Christopher Prichard was arrested on a domestic violence charge against Angela Prichard, and a no-contact order was issued—though that order was terminated less than a month later. Around July or August, the suit states that Angela Prichard found a tracking device in her car and several hidden cameras in her home. However, when she called the police to report the devices—a violation of Iowa anti-stalking laws—the officers did nothing.

Christopher Prichard also sent Angela Prichard a series of threatening text messages, including one telling her “it is going to get real fucking ugly.” A few days later, he told her he would “destroy her business.” Again, when Angela Prichard informed police after both incidents, they did not act.

On September 1, 2022, a temporary restraining order (TRO) was filed against Christopher Prichard. The next day, Angela Prichard requested a police escort to go to her home, which she stated she would not be staying at until a safety system could be installed. While Christopher Prichard had recently moved out of the house, Angela Prichard and the police officers with her arrived to find “the doors bolted, utilities shut off and no business phone.”

Additionally, “the home was vandalized, including the keepsake chest, hall bath damage, paint on the floor, master bath and master bedroom damage, spare bedroom damage, one mattress was moved around and smeared with dog poop, and guns were moved around the house.”

The suit notes that “the abuse and harassment caused by Christopher Prichard’s vandalizing the home before Angela Prichard could take possession was ignored by” the police, who did not arrest Christopher Prichard for violating the TRO.

Over the next several days, police were informed that Christopher Prichard had allegedly violated the order nine separate times. Police did eventually arrest Christopher Prichard after a 10th alleged violation, but he was released the next day and continued to harass, stalk, and otherwise violate the TRO against him for the next several weeks.

According to the complaint, Bellevue police “plainly transmitted the message to Christopher Prichard that what he did was permissible and would not cause him to be held accountable.”

On October 8, 2022, Christopher Prichard went to Angela Prichard’s workplace and shot her in the chest, killing her. Christopher Prichard has since been convicted of first-degree murder.

Why did the police so consistently fail to protect Angela Prichard? According to the suit, the inaction can at least partially be attributed to Christopher Prichard’s habit of providing electrical work to several police officers “on a reduced fee or free basis.” 

“Christopher Prichard was well known to the Defendants,” the suit reads. “And based upon the Defendants’ conduct towards him, Christopher Prichard was of the belief that he could engage in any conduct he chose without fear of being arrested or otherwise held accountable by the Bellevue Police Department.”

Further, the suit claims that police inaction rose “to the level of an affirmative condoning of private violence, even without explicit approval or encouragement.”

While the inaction alleged in the suit is horrifying, it’s unclear whether the Bellevue police officers at the center of the case will ever face accountability. Not only are police officers granted wide-ranging qualified immunity protections that prevent them from facing most civil suits—they also aren’t even legally required to protect citizens.

The post After Iowa Police Ignored Her Pleas for Help, Her Estranged Husband Killed Her appeared first on Reason.com.

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Theodore Roosevelt was president at the start of the Celebrity Age, and at the start of much of the modern image of the presidency. The White House was just beginning to be called that (rather than the Executive Mansion); Roosevelt’s renovations on the building created the West Wing. And his daughter, Alice, created one model for presidential relatives over the next century.

Aged 17 when her father became president, she was a gift to the Washington press corps. Photogenic and charming, she was nicknamed “Princess Alice” in the papers. She was invited to Edward VII’s coronation (she did not attend), and the German kaiser had her christen his yacht. Her hobnobbing with royalty didn’t sit well with her father’s man-of-the-people pose, but he could do nothing to stop his daughter’s fame.

According to White House Wild Child, Shelley Fraser Mickle’s new biography of the presidential daughter, Alice’s “celebrity had certainly surprised him. He hadn’t seen it coming. Whenever Alice appeared, crowds gathered to cheer her. Dresses and gowns appeared in ‘Alice blue.’ Her face gazed out from cards packaging candy bars. Songs were written about her, and her picture was featured on their sheet music. Her face was centered on magazine covers.” Mickle sees in Alice the forerunner of Jackie Kennedy, Princess Diana, and other trendsetting beauties and influencers.

The president was happy to deploy Alice tactically, to charm guests and diplomats. Such diplomatic tactics went the other way too: She was showered with gifts on foreign visits, gifts she referred to as her “loot.” The Cuban government gave her a magnificent set of pearls for her wedding. The Foreign Emoluments Clause apparently didn’t apply to her.

Taking advantage of her situation seemed only natural. Alice’s father had to tell her not to ride the train without a ticket. (While presidents were entitled to free travel, their kids were not.) But this was when a presidential daughter might still jump on a train with friends, rather than be accompanied by a phalanx of Secret Service agents.

Mickle’s book is part biography and part psychological study, the story of a woman growing up in impossible privilege but with a life marked by tragedy. At Alice’s birth, her mother slid into a coma and died two days later. Theodore’s mother died the same day, a double blow. He responded by avoiding his baby daughter, leaving her in his sister’s care while he fled into his political work and to his ranch out west.

He reappeared in her life three years later to introduce her to a new stepmother. A clutch of younger siblings soon followed. Mickle makes much of how this must have damaged Alice, particularly her father’s reluctance even to speak her name. (She had been named for her mother.)

***

Mickle’s book is a study in how a republic treats its leaders’ families. The nickname “princess” shows the knife-edge between democracy and dynasty, a line that presidential families have struggled to walk ever since. Alice would have her debutante ball in the White House, and she wanted a new floor installed. She approached the speaker of the House, asking him to appropriate funds for this purpose. “Alice used her every ploy on him, enjoying her first taste of lobbying,” Mickle writes, “but the Speaker held firm, refusing the funds.”

She didn’t get her way that time, but her desires were voracious. “I want more,” she scribbled in her diary. “I want everything.” She spent through her enormous allowance, and she saw nothing wrong with receiving high-value presents by dint of her position. Foreshadowing the practices of generations of socialites to come, “She tipped off newspapers about where she’d be and what she’d be up to, then pocketed the cash for the info.”

She also enjoyed making a spectacle of herself and pushing boundaries. Driving around Washington with a girlfriend in a sports car, showing up at parties with her pet snake around her shoulders, smoking in public: She was attention seeking (and attention getting). “In one fifteen-month period,” Mickle tells us, “she went to 407 dinners, 350 balls, 300 parties, and 680 teas, and she made 1,706 social calls.”

Alice was determined to get while the getting was good, fishing for a husband in the pond of D.C.’s eligible bachelors. She wanted one with money, and one who could be president himself one day. Her goal was getting back to the White House. (Of course, she never did.)

She picked Nicholas Longworth, an Ohio congressman 15 years her senior. Their White House wedding was the social event of the season. But Longworth turned out not to be on the presidential track, and he was an unfaithful alcoholic.

Alice’s life turned to disappointments. She became renowned for her caustic comments as she got older, and the wit did not disguise her bitterness. Her marriage was unhappy; her late-in-life child was the product of an affair. Her daughter died of a drug overdose in her 30s. Her father’s presidency was always the golden moment she wanted to recapture. She continued to engage with the politics of the day, joining the fight against the League of Nations and later writing newspaper columns against her cousin Franklin’s presidential candidacy. Richard Nixon was a friend for decades, and he invited her to his inauguration. She remained a Washington figure, still hovering in the orbit of those in power despite having no official role.

The legacy of “Princess Alice” raises questions we still grapple with today. How much should presidential family members trade on their name? Could that even be avoided? Of course, gifts and favors will materialize for those close to power, whether they’re sought or not. Being whisked around by motorcade and private jet these days means there’s no escaping their link to the president. It’s easy, I’m sure, to lose sight of what’s normal.

What we should accept as normal is itself an important question. With presidential son Hunter Biden in the news for crossing the line to the point of criminal indictment, we should think more seriously about where exactly that line should be drawn. There are few laws specifically dedicated to the activities of first family members. Should children be barred from particular careers? From running for office themselves? What about siblings? (When presidential kids aren’t in the news, there are embarrassing presidential brothers in the Billy Carter mold.) Even when an activity isn’t officially forbidden, the tang of shadiness or self-dealing will linger if a family member seems to be cashing in. Individuals may be chosen by the ballot, but they come with an unelected supporting cast.

Had her father not been president, Alice Roosevelt still would have made the society pages. She would have been a Park Avenue debutante. She would have been steered toward marriage with the scion of a prominent family, or perhaps a titled European. A future of philanthropic work and society events would await. But she would have wanted more.

White House Wild Child: How Alice Roosevelt Broke All the Rules and Won the Heart of America, by Shelley Fraser Mickle, Imagine, 256 pages, $27.99

The post How To Be the President's Kid appeared first on Reason.com.