William O. Douglas and the Amish

Kudos to Butler for his good piece today on LRC. The Supreme Court decision of which he speaks is the 1972 Yoder decision in which the court said that the State of Wisconsin could not compel the Amish to send their children past the eighth grade.

The sainted Justice William O. Douglas dissented in Yoder, writing that the Amish should be forced to obey the state’s dictum because it would then help expose the children to the wonderful world beyond their farms and homes. Why people insist on calling the ultra-statist Douglas a “libertarian” is beyond me.

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8:14 am on October 10, 2006