RedStateEclectic

Obama, the Arch-Reactionary

Complementing my recent post on Reactionary Liberalism, I encourage you to read this open letter to Obama, in which only one, though very grave aspect of his reactionary views (and deeds) is highlighted.

I am afraid the most powerful man in the world has ascended to the American throne mainly due to a profound lack of education or miseducation - which is patently obvious even in his field of constitutional law - and a wonderful ability to see things and act in ways that reliably cater to the needs of an egregiously inflated ego rather than to intellectual honesty, consistency and truth.

Mr. Barack Obama
President of the Executive Branch
United States Government
Washington, DC

Dear Mr. Obama:

In your recent interview with NBC News you explained that your policies would promote more private-sector job creation were it not for (as you put it) “some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers.  You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don’t go to a bank teller, or you go to the airport and you’re using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate.”

With respect, sir, you’re complaining about the source of our prosperity: innovation and the increases it causes in worker productivity.

With no less justification – but with no more validity – any of your predecessors might have issued complaints similar to yours.  Pres. Grant, for example, might have grumbled in 1873 about “some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers.  You see it when you go to a bank that uses a modern safe and so employs fewer armed guards than before, or when you travel on trains which, compared to stage coaches, transport many more passengers using fewer workers.”

Or Pres. Nixon might have groused in 1973 about such labor-saving innovation: “You see it when you step into an automatic elevator that doesn’t require an elevator operator, or when you observe that polio vaccination keeps people alive and active without the aid of nurses and all those workers who were once usefully employed making iron-lung machines, crutches, and wheelchairs.”

Do you, Pres. Obama, really wish to suggest that the innovations you blame for thwarting your fiscal policies are “structural issues” that ought to be corrected?

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030

The source.

See also my post on The Authoritarian Nature of American 'Liberalism'.

Guest Post—“Had I Been President on 9/11”

Doug Newman submitted another guest post worthy of consideration, over the weekend.  Just now getting to it.

Last Sunday evening, after The Big News, someone wrote the following in their Facebook status.

“WAS IT WORTH IT? Assuming the government’s report is indeed true and OBL is dead, were the trillions of dollars and thousands of lives, not to mention the worldwide animosity created against us worth it to capture one individual that could’ve been caught with Letters of Marque and Reprisal?”

I cut and pasted the above as my status, which led to a spirited albeit civil conversation thread. An old and good friend wrote the following:

“What evidence is there that a Letter of Marque and Reprisal would have led to Bin Laden’s capture or death any sooner than yesterday or even at all? Yesterday only showed this way worked, not that it was the best way. You might as well ask if the Civil War was worth it.”

I started to reply on Facebook, but thought I would drone on at some length about these questions. Herewith:

The proper question about how the FEDGOV should respond, if at all, to a given situation is the constitutional one. Our Constitution gives us a tool to deal with things like piracy and terrorism: a Letter of Marque and Reprisal. Such letters, issued by Congress, are a type of warrant.

The 9/11 attacks, while horrific crimes, were not acts of war. There was no invading army, no naval armada or submarine force, no aerial bombing raids by a terrorist Luftwaffe and no jihad jarheads riding their LCACs ashore in Battery Park. The 19 hijackers are dead, and hence not capable of taking us over, making us all speak Arabic and pray to Mecca five times a day, forcing Sports Illustrated to do a burqa issue, yadda, yadda, yadda.

(As Fred Reed has pointed out numerous times, it has been several centuries since a Muslim country conquered a non-Muslim country.)

Had 19 American scumsuckeroos gone overseas and committed some horrific suicide attack, would that justify a war on America? If the answer is no, why do so many Americans support all these wars in response to 9/11?

Or would you rather that any Americans who could be proven to have had a hand in planning and financing the attacks be tried and punished accordingly, and that us innocents be left alone?

With this in mind, had I been president on 9/11, I would have asked Congress to issue a Letter of Marque and Reprisal. I would have demanded that those who could be proven to have been accomplices to the attacks be apprehended, tried according to the Due Process protections spelled out in the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, and punished accordingly. (1)The Bill of Rights applies to terror suspects, too. And if it doesn’t apply to terror suspects, it doesn’t apply to you either.

A Letter of Marque and Reprisal would not even necessarily involve the use of the military. Moreover, it would focus our entire energy on apprehending the specific perpetrators of the crimes, and would thus very probably finish the task in much less than a decade. It would not authorize the spilling of innocent blood. It would not authorize ruinously expensive – in both blood and treasure – wars. And it would not set a precedent for further breaches of the Constitution by future presidents.

This course of action would have been worth it.

When Benjamin Franklin was exiting the Constitutional Convention in 1787, a women is said to have asked him just what had the convention had wrought. Franklin replied: “A republic, if you can keep it.”

In 1866, in the case of Ex Parte Milligan, supreme Court Justice David Davis wrote some of the greatest words ever to emanate from the federal bench: “The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances. No doctrine, involving more pernicious consequences, was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism.”

The strict limits our Constitution sets on the federal government – both domestically and abroad – become even more important during times of crisis. It is during these times that governments are most likely to take away liberties. Moreover, it is during these times that people are willing to relinquish liberty for a false sense of security.

In response to 9/11, GWB launched two wars without formal declarations from Congress. These wars resulted in the deaths of over 5000 American sailors, soldiers, airmen and Marines as well as countless thousands of innocents abroad. 9/11 has been used as an excuse to spy on the American people without warrants, torture people, and declare people guilty without trial. This was most definitely not worth it.

When you allow a president whom you like to overstep constitutional limits on his power for reasons that you approve of, just know that there are other people with other agendas who want presidents that they like to overstep these limits. (Please read my article on how the Right literally begged for Obamacare.)

“But this was Osama bin Laden, the 9/11 mastermind.” I don’t give a flying rip who he was! When the POTUS can arbitrarily and unilaterally proclaim Bin Laden guilty, he can also declare you guilty. (2) When the POTUS can order the killing of Bin Laden without due process, he can also order you to be killed without due process. It doesn’t matter how severe the accusation or how overwhelming the weight of public opinion against the accused. Either the Bill of Rights applies equally to everybody or it doesn’t apply at all to anybody.

(The Constitution only grants the POTUS one direct power over an individual: the power to pardon.)

Bin Laden was never formally charged in connection with 9/11. The FBI wanted him in connection with the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and “other terrorist attacks.” However, no specific mention was ever made on his “Most Wanted” poster of 9/11. And calling 9/11 “(an)other terrorist attack” is like calling the Grand Canyon another hole in the ground.

See anything here about 9/11? Hmm. Me neither.

Osama bin Laden was most probably quite a horrible person. Nevertheless, he was a person, however hard that statement might be to stomach. And as this war was never properly declared by Congress, he is entitled to the same protections as thee or me.

(And if they really wanted Bin Laden, why did they never trace any of those recordings they claimed he made back to their origin and just nab him?)

But the feds would ne-e-e-e-e-ever kill innocent civilians. Oh yes they would. What happened at Ruby Ridge in 1992 and at Waco in 1993? I have heard the Waco massacre described as a trial balloon floated before a brainwashed nation. The Powers That Be wanted to see just how much the American people would let them get away with. As it turns out, this is a whole lot.

Spreading lurid accusations about people and then killing them without due process is something that the feddle gummint would never, ever, ever, ever, ever do to American citizens.

Eighteen years and a few weeks later, the majority of Americans are all good with having themselves photographed naked and sexually assaulted as a condition of travel in the name of “national security.” If they are so devoid of self-respect that they will tolerate this, what will they NOT tolerate?

Blood? Money? Liberty? No, it was not worth the price at all.

Now let’s rewind things 140 years to the Civil War. (I will not drone on at nearly as much length about this.)

First, the war was not about slavery, but about the disproportionate burden that tariffs placed on the economy of the South.

Second, slavery was well on its way to extinction and would have ended without a war. (No other country “needed a war” to end slavery.) It was dying because of technological advances as well as the growing conviction in the hearts and minds of Americans that it was just plain wrong. There were, however, powerful lobbies in both the North and South in favor of preserving slavery. Lincoln’s prime objective was to save the Union, regardless of whether or not he ended slavery.

Third, the Emancipation Proclamation only freed the slaves in certain states and, in the case of Louisiana, parts of those states. It did not apply in several states where slavery still existed.

Fourth, Lincoln was a tyrant who arrested dissenting legislators and newspaper editors, censored the mails, suspended habeas corpus, and imposed the first income tax and military draft.

Fifth, secession was never forbidden by the Constitution. The Civil War put an end to the  “free and independent states” envisioned by Jefferson became mere administrative subdivisions of the federal leviathan.

620,000 people, whose only offense – not crime, offense – was to exercise the same rights that the colonists exercised so bravely in 1776, died as a result.

The War of Northern Aggression – or for Southern Independence – was not only not necessary to free the slaves, but it also constituted a great leap forward, if you will, in the direction of an omnipotent central government.

When I look at all the spirited resistance to federal authority I see today over Obombercare, gun rights and medical hippy lettuce I can only think how badly we have all been lied to. A war that was supposedly about freedom actually set the table for an all-powerful federal government that today is hellbent on making us all slaves again.

Good ends do not justify bad means. What goes around comes around. We reap what we sow. And before we chop down those hedges of protection enshrined in our Bill of Rights for whatever reason – even an apparently very good reason – we have to ask one question: when those hedges are down, and the hurricane-force winds of tyranny blow, will you – yes, you – be able to stand upright?

I leave you with this.

 

And, more eloquently, with this.

___________________________________________________

(1) Also, had I been POTUS on 9/11, I would have pursued a policy 0f – in Jefferson’s words – “peace, commerce and honest friendship with all and entangling alliances with none.” This would include Israel. When you throw your weight around militarily to the extent that America does, you will inevitably have a lot of people hating on you. Also, I would have stopped this idiocy of disarming air travelers.

(2) As Dubya said of Bin Laden: “We know he’s guilty. Turn him over. There’s no need to discuss innocence or guilt.”
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High Speed Rail

With reference to our discussions concerning my post Getting Used to Humiliation, I leave it to your knowledge of physics and other resources of your imagination to figure out the potential for terrorist damage in a high speed train.

To give you a sense of it:

 

I think Ron Paul is right, security issues should be left with the operators (airlines etc.), hopefully private ones, exposed to serious competition. By far the best solution. Involving the state is an invitation to never ending scare scenarios and ever widening arbitrary intrusion. Even if one assumes the benevolence of the state, in efficiency terms and regarding a wide range of other criteria, involving government is a costly and dangerous violation of the principle of subsidiarity.

The Public Good (2)

Further to my post The Public Good (1), Mario Rizzo has similar and complementary thoughts on the subject:

The reason we cannot have a coherent, comprehensive plan to solve the political and economic difficulties of the federal government (and of the state governments) is that people do not have a coherent, comprehensive hierarchy of values beyond the basics of social order. Hayek made this argument in The Road to Serfdom with regard to the problems of comprehensive economic planning.  

To a large extent, we are now facing this problem in reverse. We have attained the current level and extent of the welfare state as an accretion of special interest legislation and short-sighted but popular redistribution programs. All of this took place over a long period of time with little or no thought to the overall effects, to what kind of society we have been building. 

But now the threatened fiscal messes at both the federal and state level are requiring some form of “orderly” reduction in the size and scope of government. But, as I opined  here in the final days of the Bush Administration, the “reform” of the welfare state will not be orderly. It will be driven by a war among the various interests groups who, as is their habit, do not see the other person’s point of view. But why should they? They got their largesse from the government by being single-minded and self-interested. Bad habits (from the social perspective) are hard to break. 

The “unreasonableness” of the discussion stems from the fact that there is no underlying objective code of values (or at least not one that can be accessed by the political system). Most players are guilty of avidity and partiality. We all have hard-luck stories to portray to the media. Most people’s minds are too concrete-bound to see the larger, somewhat abstract, picture.  

The unreasonableness, or so it seems, of our political culture is, to a large extent, a product of the kind of special interest redistributionist society we have built. Some commentators have rationalized the welfare state in terms of notions of distributive justice. But these are the mental spinnings of academics. These ideas have not been the driving political and economic forces that have created our culture. Those forces are derived from an abandonment of the traditional concept of the “common good,” that is, the good of each and all.  

There is very little beyond the minimal state that is truly in the interests of all of us. Every movement beyond that takes us into the unreasonable territory of the exploitation of one group by another. No wonder discussion is not civil.

Whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.

The source.

See also my first ever post at RedStateEclectic: The Destruction of Civilization - the Replacement of Justice by Politically Enforceable Interests.

Opting Out

A site has popped up promoting what is becoming known as “Opt Out Day”.  The day is set for November 24—the day before Thanksgiving, and one of the busiest days for airline travel.  The promoters are suggesting that folks “opt out” of the “naked scanners” and submit—publicly, to raise awareness of what’s going on—to the “pat downs” that are happening in the place of scanning.

Some have suggested—including a friend of this blog’s—that this is the price we pay to remain safe and secure as we travel, and that everyone will get used to the inconveniences.  These folks suggest that as long as there are terrorists (specifically Muslim terrorists) out there, that we’re just going to have to put up with it.  …So I guess we’re relegating ourselves and our children to living in an eternal police state, huh?  Won’t there ALWAYS be terrorists?  Weren’t there terrorists before 9/11? 

I want to be safe, just like the next person.  I don’t relish the thought of getting on a plane, or being in a building, that is the subject of a terrorist attack.  Just like everyone else, I’d like to live a long and happy life, watching my kids grow up, get married, have families, and bring the grandkids over to visit.  But I can live with a little bit of fear of the actions of crazy people, and random violence—just as I can live with the risk of getting in a car each day, knowing that statistically, my chances are better of getting killed out on the road, than of being the subject of a terrorist attack.  

The assorted school shootings hasn’t meant that kids are subjected to strip searches every day before school—the actions of a couple of sick kids doesn’t mean that everyone is a shooter; and yet the TSA apparently suspects that EVERYONE is guilty until proven innocent.  I wonder, is the purchase of a ticket the equivalent of purchasing a warrant for your own arrest in the eyes of the TSA?   Even before these latest additional security measures, I was hesitant to fly—the last time I flew, it just seemed to me that stopping and pulling 80-some year olds out of their wheelchairs so that they could be “wanded” was a little much. 

So, what happens now, if you’ve got someone—say Grandma—who can’t stand in the Advanced Imagery machines like they want her to?  Will she now be subjected to an aggressive pat down? 

What about young children? I’ve seen videos of late, of children who could barely walk on their own, being pulled aside for the special screening, and when parents objected to having them go through the “scanners” (how do we know that no pedophiles are watching the images of our children?), they were taken from their parents for an aggressive pat down that—including what parents and schools had taught them about “private areas” would be something they should report as “bad touch”?

I know some will disagree with me here, but the more I’ve read—and from multiple sources—the more I believe that the TSA is out of control.  Be sure to click on the link at the top, look at the scanner pictures, and consider whether you want to have some stranger—not your doctor and not your significant other, but a stranger who may have little more than a high school education, and about whom you know nothing—looking at you naked body (I don’t get THAT naked at the doctor’s office—the medical professionals and procedures I’ve been around at least allow the covering of areas that aren’t specifically being examined at the time, allowing you to maintain some sense of modesty), or rubbing their hands along your “private areas.”  And after you’ve done that, lighten up on the topic, just a little, with Colbert’s perspective (the first part of the video).  As serious as this is, and as frustrated as we might be with this situation, if we don’t find ways of laughing just a little at it, we’ll drive ourselves crazy.

 

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Tip/Wag - TSA, Bert & Dogs<a>
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election March to Keep Fear Alive

EDIT to add the Japanese making fun of us:

So Sayeth Quigley: “The Pig is Dead”

Bernie Quigley, columnist for "The Hill's Pundits Blog", also has his own blog (where some of his posts are cross posted, and which is listed on our Blog roll).  We're honored to have him pop by our place from time to time, and occasionally we’ll even have a little “conversation.”

His most recent conversation with us, in response to one of Georg’s posts late last week, seems to have dovetailed with some other work he was doing.  The essence of his piece goes along with much of our conversation: that the country is regionalizing economic well-being, that the “red states” are making it better than the “blue states”, and that the agricultural Midwest is going to emerge as a new economic center of the country.  Living in one of those states, I can’t help but like that prospect.

My favorite part of the piece, though, goes back to what is underlying so much of the current “tea party” movement—the unholy worship of politicians at the altar of “pork.”  Everyone wants to bring back the bacon so that they can get re-elected; no one wants to go back home and say “I’m not bringing home the bacon because I know that it’s fiscally irresponsible to keep spending like this”…because they know that their constituents have been paying taxes just like the constituents in every district in the union, and they want to get some of those taxes back—in some form.

The pig is dead. For decades now each political party has run a deficit so deep that when the opposition came to power any new deficit spending would break the bank. The only variation of this theme was when the most naïve of presidents, Bill Clinton, inexplicably hired the primo Republican trickster, who advised him to kill the deficit, so the Republican who followed could spend again, which they indeed did. Today, neither party can bring home the pork, The pig is butchered, baked, barbecued and eaten and there is no pork left.

In my view, the deficit is both a taxing and a spending problem.  As long as there are Americans who feel they are being taxed and someone else is reaping the rewards of their effort, there will be a demand for more spending, more pork, more subsidies, and more guaranteed loans.  Spending and taxes both need to be cut drastically—not one or the other, but both.  Cut government to its bare bones—to doing only those things which they must do (which is probably very little, but all things which would truly be considered a “public service” or “public good” for all, and current obligations).  And then cut taxes to cover those thing and nothing more.

LLE

Tea Baggers' Rocket Science

'Teabagger' was an Oxford dictionary word of the year finalist.

Liberty Never Sleeps

I seem to be fairly regularly up until 1 a.m. these days, trying to get some of the many things on my “to do” list done (although the list keeps growing faster than I can cross them off).  Tonight, I was working on some class prep for tomorrow, and started getting a flurry of e-mail messages from one C4L group that I belong to.  They were all talking about this: http://www.campaignforliberty.com/forums/viewtopic.php?topic=10584

I don’t know what the real story is on this particular issue, and will wait for a response from someone who has authority to speak for the group before I say too much about it.  But what struck me was this: as I write this, it’s 12:30 a.m. Central time, and there were e-mails flowing into my e-mail box—all, as it happens, from state coordinators—at midnight, my time (which means that those East Coast folks who were writing were up until 1, already.

I’m not sure that anyone appreciates the fact that unlike some organizations out there, most of the C4L folks in the states are still primarily volunteers, doing their work part-time (or full-time aside from their regular full-time tasks).  Some of them may be starting to get enough money in the bank that they an get reimbursed occasionally for expenses, but many of us are still footing a good chunk of the bill (not just the state coordinators, but the regional and county ones, as well) for printing, purchase of brochures, banners, etc.

It occurred to me, though, that given the hours that most of the coordinators are putting in, that liberty probably never does sleep in the U.S.  If, for instance, most of us are up until 1 or 2 a.m. our own times, that would mean that if the Alaska and Hawaii folks are still up at 1 their time, it’s pushing 5 or 6 a.m. on the East Coast—a time that a lot of folks would be starting to get up and get moving…

Just a random thought at 12:45 a.m.

LLE

Riding to Boston

Looking at the calendar as I changed pages this morning, a couple of things dawned on me:

1. Less than four weeks till the “great feast” which is Thanksgiving.  At my house.  Which means I really need to do some “deep cleaning” before the whole family shows up.  They know we’re not neatniks, but…
2. Cleaning some of the shelving around my office, I found the tracking sheet I set up several months ago (maybe right after our late July vacation!) in which I was going to try to ride/walk (on paper) from my part of the country to Boston by December 16 (the Boston Tea Party).  Given that I had gotten about halfway to Des Moines before life apparently took over and I fell off the exercise wagon, I’m going to have a little trouble, I think. By my calculation, I’d need to get something like 35 miles in a day to get there.  I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen.  I either need to find some people to help (I can probably get 8-10 mile on the exercise bide most days—once I get myself re-conditioned), or I need to reset my target day (maybe April 19 for the Battle of Lexington and Concord?).   I’m hoping for Chicago or further by December 16th now.  Since I’m well into Iowa, got 5 miles in today, and will be starting to raise the bar a bit every day till I get to 10 or so, I’m hoping that’s possible in the next 45 days.
3. This seems like a prudent effort, given that a pair of slacks seemed just a little snugger today than they did the last time I wore them.  What with the holidays in front of us, a little bit of prophylactic burning of calories seems like a good idea.  Plus, though I’d put exercise aside for a while using the excuse that I was “too busy”, the truth is that I actually get more accomplished if I make time for a half hour or so on the exercise bike during the day.  That endorphin flow seems to counteract the “drowsies” that sometimes hit.

 

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Thoughts About Caring

I’m not going to include any links in this post—just some random observations—all you have to do is check out any of the major media outlets in the last couple of days to see what I’m talking about…

Sen. Edward Moore Kennedy (aka “Ted”) was laid to rest today.  It would be tough to to deny that he has had an impact on national politics for the last four decades—although I wonder if we didn’t overdo the whole thing a bit.  Kennedy had never been elected nationally—only in his home state of Massachusetts—so why were flags throughout the country ordered at half-mast?  Flags in D.C.—o.k.; flags in Massachusetts—sure; but why in Nebraska or Texas or California?  Seems to me that he’s been treated as the “President who was never elected” in some ways.

That said, we were told (at least in the very brief stories and news snippets that I saw), that Senator Kennedy had been a man of faith.  Certainly he was raised in the Catholic faith, and while one might question his fidelity to that faith at some points in his life (consider the alleged infidelities, his promotion of abortion “rights”, etc.—that his Church would certainly frown on), there seems some indication, accurate or not, that he had rediscovered a more sincere faith sometime after his second marriage (which by most accounts, changed him for the better), and that in the wake of his cancer diagnosis over a year ago, he worked at preparing himself spiritually for eternity.  The story that he asked President Obama to deliver a personal letter to the Pope earlier this summer is apparently true: excerpts of it were read at his interment.  Paraphrasing, he told the Pope that he was sick, that while treatments were continuing, they were taking a toll on him, and that he was preparing for the hereafter—and he asked the Pope to pray for him.  The Pontiff apparently returned a letter, which included a blessing on Kennedy and his family.

Now, to the real point of this.  Kennedy’s political views seem to me (a Protestant, so I’ll pledge some ignorance) a reflection of the focus of Catholicism’s social goals in an earlier era: feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, clothing and housing the poor, etc.  All of those are virtuous goals.  Those are goals that—as a Christian—I can easily (and have) support.  But as a Citizen, I cannot support those as goals of the government.  As a Christian, if I feel a calling to promote those social goals, I am perfectly free to do so.  If I want to donate 30% or 40% or 50% of my income to that cause, I can, as a matter of choice or calling.

But when government makes those goals part of its policy, not only is it less efficient than most charitable organizations that make a dollar stretch farther, but it can only achieve those goals through confiscating the earnings of others.

The assorted commentators and eulogizers of Sen. Kennedy have pointed out that his goal was to provide liberty and justice for all—by which he meant, I guess, a forced leveling of the playing field through income redistribution.  I am sympathetic to the notion of caring for those who need our help; but I believe that forcing people to care for others by grabbing their hard-earned money so that it can be given to others in some form provides neither.  Liberty is not increased for the poor by making them more dependent on the government; and justice does not condone stealing from one to give to the other. 

Senator Kennedy may have been a nice guy, personally (many have testified to such over the last few days—although some of the scandals, including the death of Mary Jo Kopechne might cast some shadows over that view); he may have been fun to be around (indeed, as a political junkie, I think it would have been fun to be a fly on the wall around him sometimes—when he wasn’t “Borking” someone, some snippets of his life suggest he might have been a teller of great stories); he may have sincerely believed that social justice could only come about by government fiat…but Senator Kennedy was, in my view, wrong.  Jesus’ command to “care for the least of these” was a command to his followers—not to Caesar’s government.   Kennedy should have known this, and those who seek to use his name to promote government mandated social justice ought to consider this, as well.

LLE