Our Moral Responsibility

 

(This essay originally appeared in the Tampa Bay Mensa Sounding in late 2001 or early 2002.   It's original date was November 7, 2001.

 

 

Almost every appeal we hear for one good cause or another is couched in terms that remind us we have a “moral responsibility” to help the less fortunate.   Really?   Do we?

Yes, we do, but there's a caveat.   “Moral responsibility” loses its connection with morality when coercion enters the picture.   “Moral responsibility” cannot exist without the ability to fail to take responsibility.   Like light and darkness, neither can exist without the other.   When our behavior is coerced, when there is no choice but to do that which is “moral”, morality no longer has anything to do with the issue and “moral responsibility” all but evaporates.   This is the situation we are placed in by the welfare state:   we are taxed in order that we not shirk our moral responsibilities to those less fortunate.

If that were the entire problem, it might be sufferable.   We would shrug our shoulders at the venality of our politicians and continue about our business.   Unfortunately, that's not the entire problem.   The recipients of that concern for the less fortunate cannot see the ultimate supplier of their aid; they see the taxing authority as their benefactor and they understand that they are entitled (by virtue of being less fortunate) to the aid they receive.   Because they are entitled (that's why they call such things “entitlements”) there is a reduced incentive to act to become independent.   When all charity was private (that is, not tax-supported) the poor were painfully aware that they were dependent on the kindness of strangers and, as a general rule, did what they could to escape that unpleasant situation; that is, they found work and saved so that they would no longer have to rely on handouts (and this still happens even if not as predictably as we might wish).   Private charities, moreover, were able to granulate their effect: they exercised individual discretion; if an obviously able-bodied person seemed not to be making an effort to get off the dole that person could be cut off without a long, arduous investigation and mountains of paperwork designed to forestall a legal challenge.   The change from private charity to tax-supported charity created what many of us see as the fatal flaw of the welfare system: that consecutive generations are dependent upon it.   The lack of granularity is a primary cause of this: the government must grant citizens equal protection under the law, and this works to prevent the bureaucrat cutting off that able-bodied slacker.

Many adults today, having grown up in a world where “being on welfare” was something to be avoided until and unless absolutely necessary, cannot imagine how our current situation could have arisen and because they find the world around them so inexplicable they assign the blame for it to...   themselves.   The government, after all, is working to undo that horrid situation, isn't it?

In a word... no.   That “horrid situation” did not exist in the form we see it today until government decided to act.   It is true that some people were poor before The War on Poverty was declared, but even Jesus is reported to have said “…the poor will always be with you…” so it's not exactly a new problem.

The War on Poverty defined “poor” as having an annual income below x (and I don't know what “x” originally was).   Such a definition, note, must be local to the defining authority.   There are rich people in Third World countries who would gladly become poor Americans.

With a definable underclass government may now proceed to remedy the situation with subsidies, grants, and gifts.   As the defined underclass is pushed up from the bottom, the bottom does not simply disappear.   Those who are now poorer than the ones pushed up become the new bottom.   Indeed, the poor shall always be with us; somebody has to be on the bottom just as somebody has to be on the top.

Viewed this way, it becomes clear that The War on Poverty is another war which can never be won.   Well, maybe it can't be won, but what's the alternative?   The alternative is to return a measure of granularity to the process, something we can do quite easily: by returning to the situation of “private charity”.   We will still, under a regime of private charity, have poor people, but we will also have some assurance that they are poor because of their own choices, rather than because someone somewhere has defined “poor” to include them.

 

18 USC 241

 

Tonight, I heard — for the first time — a political commentator reference 18 USC 241 as the tool with which to fight back against the 'lawfare' recently waged against Donald Trump.  That person was Mike Davis, founder of the Article III Project, talking to Carl Higbee on his NewsMax program.

For those unfamiliar with 18 USC 241 "Conspiracy against rights", here is the relevant text:

If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; or

If two or more persons go in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured—

They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.

This applies to NYS AG Letitia James and Judge Arthur Engoron as follows:  they conspired to interfere with the defendant's freedom to engage in business and to enter into contracts.

This applies to Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg and Judge Juan Merchan as follows:  they conspired to interfere with the defendant's right to be protected against self-incrimination.

This applies to US AG Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Special Prosecutor Jack Smith as follows:  they conspired to interfere with the (former) President's power to declassify documents as affirmed by the Supreme Court in Navy v Egan.

This applies to US AG Merrick Garland, Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, and Judge Tanya Chutkan as follows:  they conspired to indict the (former) President for exercising his duty "to see the laws be faithfully executed".

I look forward to seeing all of them in federal prison for "not more than ten years" on each count.  That day cannot come soon enough.

 

Hallelujah!

 

Today, June 23rd, 2022, Justice Clarence Thomas, born on this day in 1948, delivered the majority opinion in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, striking at the beating heart of New York's flagrantly unconstitutional Sullivan Act.

The Sullivan Act, passed in 1911, establishes strict gun control within New York State with particular application within New York City.  It guarantees that obtaining a personal firearm is going to be a long and costly bureaucratic nightmare.  Beyond that, obtaining permission to actually carry that firearm on your person is nearly impossible.  A few years back, I posed the question "How many concealed-carry permits are there in New York City?"  The answer I derived was '2,291'.  In a city of 8.8 million people, that is statistically zero.

Two New York residents who had 'possession' permits for their pistols (valid only at their home or business) wanted to carry those firearms concealed on their persons and were denied because, in keeping with the Sullivan Act, they were unable to demonstrate to the examiner that they had a need to be armed beyond simple self-defense.  Five other states (you can almost guess who they are, can't you?) impose similar or identical restrictions.  The New York State Rifle and Pistol Association funded the several lawsuits resulting from that denial, culminating at the Supreme Court as New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

Justice Thomas has several times in the past castigated his fellow justices for turning away 2nd amendment cases that were similar to Bruen, and it appears his complaining has finally borne fruit.  The 6-3 decision gave Thomas the pen since the 2nd amendment seemed to have been his pet project.  Finally, he has the ability to author a strong defense of the 2nd's original meaning.  The 135 page decision will take some effort, no doubt, but given Thomas' erudition, it will be worth every minute.

Thank you, Justice Thomas.  We have been waiting so long for this.  Happy birthday.

 

Update:  I have managed to actually read the official opinion (footnotes omitted) and there is something else in there that I didn't realize originally: NYSRPA v Bruen also explicitly instructs lower courts that when dealing with 2A issues strict scrutiny is the applicable level of judicial review.  That means that any new or existing law, when it appears before a lower court, the state must now make a compelling case that the law at issue is both compliant with the Constitution and necessary for the public safety.  When challenged, NYS will have to defend its $445 fee for doing a background check beyond that done (for free) by the federal government.  Good luck with that.  They will have to defend the overly intrusive 32 page questionnaire each applicant is required to complete.  Good luck with that, too.  Basically, the entire Sullivan Act is now at risk of being gutted like a perch.

 

I'm Tired Of Hearing About Russia And Ukraine

 

It's awful that Russia invaded Ukraine.  That's the end of that story.  Ukraine has no strategic value to the United States, and we are five times as far away from Ukraine as is Germany.  If Russia invading Ukraine is a serious political problem, it's five times as much of a problem for Germany as it is for us.  Before we get involved in another European Pissing Contest Among Cousins (see WW-I), I want to see several European countries get involved first.  Poland has already said "Thanks, we'll pass".

As punishment for their dastardly deeds, the U.S. is imposing sanctions on Russia, cutting them off from the international banking system.  Of course, the power elite in Russia, the political leaders and the oligarchs, are largely unaffected by the sanctions.  It's The Man In The Street who is most affected.  Idiot Americans think we're doing the Lord's work by bashing Russia.  What we're actually doing is confirming in the minds of ordinary Russians that we're a bunch of ignorant bullies.  That's largely true, but we don't have to confirm it daily, do we?

Meanwhile, the mostly-made-up conflict with Russia provides the perfect villain upon which our incompetent administration can blame the high price of gasoline.  Forget the fact that Biden's first official act as President was to kill the KeystoneXL pipeline.  Forget the fact that Biden's second official act as President was to ban fracking.  None of those had anything to do with the price of motor fuel.  How odd, then, that this week for the first time ever, we paid more than $4 per gallon for gasoline; $4.249 to be precise, and that's with a 5¢/gallon discount, so $4.299 for almost everybody else.  Energy independence?  Who needs that?

Almost everyone is now aware that inflation has infected the economy, but being economic illiterates, few understand why inflation has infected the economy.  Anyone even moderately conversant with the Austrian School of Economics knows the answer.  Since the Trump Presidency, the Fed has been issuing letters of credit to the U.S. Treasury, and the U.S. Mint has been printing greenbacks... $8Trillion worth.  80% of all the dollars in circulation have been printed... new... within the last two years.  The only surprise is that inflation has only hit a 40-year high and not a 90-year high (to account for the Great Depression.

Back in 2016, I predicted an oncoming economic crash, and I was very surprised that it didn't happen.  I predicted it in 2012, too.  Perhaps I was too much of a pessimist back then, but I have not seen anything that makes me feel optimistic about our country's future path.  My (Republican) Congressman, Gus Bilirakis (FL-12), gleefully reported today that he helped spend another trillion — for the children and for the troops!  And to reward them for all their good work, the 'emergency spending bill' also included a raise for members of Congress!

Really, as long as the bulk of voters insist on sending to Washington politicians who see their job as 'spending money as fast as possible' there's no way we're going to escape runaway inflation.

Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?

 

Pot Legalization Looms

 

Congressional Democrats are responding positively to a call from the Biden White House to legalize and reschedule marijuana and to expunge all non-violent federal pot-possession convictions.

It's about time.  This has been a plank of the Libertarian Party Platform for 49 years — a tad shorter than the lifespan of the actual 'War On Drugs'.  How nice that someone in D.C. seems to still have a shred of common sense.

This, of course, is bad news for the Republican Party.  Most legacy Republicans still think of pot as 'the Devil's lettuce' or 'demon weed'.  Well, they better get religion pretty fast or they're going to be left in the dust of the Democrats when all those former felons suddenly discover that they can now vote.  And who, pray tell, do you think those former felons will vote for?  Hmm...?  Will it be, do you think, the party of Richard Nixon who started the brutal and ill-fated War On Drugs and began shipping Hippies off to the Graybar Hotel?  Will it be, do you think, the party of George W. Bush who ramped up that war (along with a few others)?  The GOP might save themselves — somewhat — if they're able to successfully get out the word that William Jefferson Clinton (who didn't inhale, let us recall) put more pot smokers in federal slam than any other President before or since.

No, the GOP's single chance will be to publicly congratulate Senator Charles ("Chuck is also a verb") Schumer on a courageous position and then get foursquare behind the effort such that Pot Legalization and Rescheduling passes the Senate 100-0 and the House 435-0.  Anything short of that is going to label the GOP as 'stuck in the past' (which is true, but they don't have to prove it every day, do they?)

 

California AWCA Struck Down

 

I'm just going to drop this here and let any interested reader draw their own conclusions.

https://thepriceofliberty.org/2021/06/14/californian-lies-so-blatant-even-a-judge-recognizes-them/

 

UPDATE:  6-22-2021

A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circus Court of Appeals has extended the judge's original 30-day stay indefinitely, but didn't, apparently, reverse the ruling, although it's difficult to imagine a different reason than that the panel disagrees with the ruling's holding that the law was unconstitutional.

 

Timing Is Everything

 

There's a fresh new piece of anti-gun legislation being groomed for its prime-time appearance before a largely Democratic Congress.  It's called H.R.127 and it has all the elements of a gun-grabber's wet dream:

• universal background checks,
   
• psych evaluations on entire households,
   
• a ban on vast categories of heretofore-otherwise-lawful weapons,
   
• HUGE taxes and fees required for mere possession of what's left,
   
• mandatory periodic training,
   
• a publicly-accessible database of all gun owners (and their inventory?),
   
• and increases in the budget, authority, and power of the most corrupt of all corrupt federal bureaus and agencies, the Bureau of Alchohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

Totally unconstitutional, of course, but when has that ever stopped Congress?  Why is it unconstitutional, you ask?  Stop me if I get any of this wrong...

Rule #1 of 'jurisprudence' world-wide is that later law trumps earlier law.  A law passed today can be repealed by a law passed tomorrow.  That's so straight-forward it almost doesn't rate putting it down on paper.  Then

1. The fundamental axiom of the American System is that 'rights' are an endowment from God or Nature or some other metaphysical entity that is outside of and above government and, in fact, pre-exists government.
    
2. Governments do not have rights;  they have powers and authorities granted to them by we the people, from whom all such power originates ('the consent of the governed').
    
3. The vehicle for granting such powers and authorities is The U.S.Constitution.  The Constitution was ratified and came into force in 1789.
    
4. The Second Amendment, concerning the right of the people to keep and bear arms, was ratified in 1791, two years after the Constitution.
    
5. In 1934, and then again in 1968, Congress passed gun control laws, justifying them as part of Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce.
    
6. Both of these acts should be considered unconstitutional because the power to regulate interstate commerce was granted in Article I of the Constitution in 1789.  If those powers ever included authority over firearms and other weapons, that authority was revoked in 1791 with the passage of the Second Amendment.  Timing is everything when it comes to 'constitutionality'.
    
7. That 'fresh new piece of anti-gun legislation' being prepped in the House suffers from the same disability.

But the worst part of H.R.127 isn't that it's unconstitutional.  The worst part is that it will be impossible to comply with.  The monstrous cost of attempting to comply will price most poor or minority families out of the market or, alternatively, send millions of them to prison.  Clearly, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) either hasn't given this much thought or simply doesn't care that she has codified a brand new poll tax on many of her constituents.

The former marks her as more stupid than Maxine Watters;  the latter as more cruel than Bull Connor.

Keep up the evil work, Sheila.

 

Executive Orders

 

There's a lot of chatter on social media about how many EOs Biden is producing, so I thought this might be an opportune time to talk about Executive Orders and their effect.

"All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives."
      — U.S.Constitution, Article I, Section 1

Pretty plainly, laws come from Congress.  How to explain, then, the off-handed remark by Paul Begala, an aide to President Clinton:

"Stroke of the pen.  Law of the land.  Kinda cool."

on how Clinton was going to use EOs to make happen what he wanted to happen.  The explanation is that Begala got it wrong, although most Americans, being not-too-well-versed in their own Constitution, probably didn't realize it.

Executive Orders cannot be law, because they don't come from Congress.  Okay, so what are they?  They are instructions to employees of the Executive Branch from the Chief Executive, their ultimate boss.  They tell those employees in the Department of Justice, the FBI, the Treasury, the State Department, and all the other less-well-known departments and bureaus how they are to operate.

They can't tell you what to do or not do, because then they would have the force of law, and the President can't make law.  Only Congress can make law.  That's what it says in Article 1, Section 1.

The fly in this ointment is that the way employees of the Executive Branch operate on a day-to-day basis often affects citizens who are not themselves employees of the Executive Branch in ways that are indistinguishable from laws that Congress passes.  When the guards at the Capitol are told to "admit no one who is not wearing a mask", the effect is that you must wear a mask in order to get in to see your Congressman — without Congress having acted.  That's why EOs sometimes feel like "the law of the land" even though they're not.

Occasionally, a President will issue an EO that a President clearly has no authority to issue.  This happened when, for instance, President Obama (who was, let us recall, a 'Constitutional scholar') committed us to the Paris Climate Accord.

[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur.
      — U.S.Constitution, Article II, Section 2

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
      — U.S.Constitution, Article VI

but the Senate did not concur.  The 'treaty' was never presented to the Senate for their consent.  So, when President Trump issued an EO taking us out of the Paris Climate Accord, he was undoing something his predecessor had no authority to do in the first place.  President Biden just (illegally) put us back in, reversing Trump's (legal) EO.

It will be interesting to see if anyone objects to any of Biden's EOs on the grounds that some of them do attempt to make law without involving Congress.  I'll actually be surprised if that happens.

 

 

Cleaning house in the Senate

 

The House of Representatives has impeached former President Trump for a second time.  With much fanfare, the (Democrat) House Impeachment Managers then solemnly marched across to the Senate and delivered the Articles of Impeachment to their (Democrat) majority leader.  Yesterday, Sen Rand Paul of Kentucky introduced a resolution declaring the proceeding moot because Trump has already left office.  The vote failed 55-45 with five Republican Senators voting to continue to trial:  Susan M. Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Mitt Romney (Utah), Ben Sasse (Neb.) and Patrick J. Toomey (Pa.).

It's true that someone who has already left office may be impeached, and if convicted, can be barred from holding public office in the future.  This is the purpose of impeaching Trump again: to prevent him challenging President Kamala Harris in 2024 when she runs for re-election.

I'm not a fan of Trump.  I think he's boorish and (quite frankly) stupid.  People hold that he's a 'street fighter from Queens', but the last four years haven't shown that.  Boorishness, yes; street savvy, no.  If he were as smart as people think he is, his first official act should have been to fire anyone in DOJ, FBI, CIA, or NSA who was even suspected of being less than 100% on his side.  That's what 'draining the swamp' looks like.  He didn't do that, and there can be only two reasons:  one, he really wasn't serious about draining the swamp, or two, he really isn't that smart.

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

But there's something else going on here.  In case after case, Republicans drop the ball on this hot-button issue or that one.  They seem always one step behind their Democrat foes.  That's why issues like gun control seem to always get worse: the Democrats make it worse, but the Republicans never make it better.  If the GOP is to survive this, it has to change its thinking in a radical, fundamental way.  They have to adopt 'no prisoners' as their modus operandi, and they have the perfect opportunity to do that right now.  I mean 'today'.

The RNC must pull those five Senators aside and tell them in no uncertain terms that their defection on this issue has consequences, specifically, that they are ejected from the party, that they may no longer present themselves to their state party officials as 'Republicans'.  The RNC should start with Romney, Collins, and Murkowski who typically vote with the Democrats anyway.  If they're going to vote like Democrats, let them run like Democrats.

Now, I am not a member of the Republican Party, and I don't expect them to pay attention to my opinions, but there are plenty of Republicans out there who see the GOP's record of failure and wonder why those wily Dems seem always to be ahead of the game.  Their party will listen to them and, if their voice is heard, it may not be necessary to burn the GOP to the ground, My-Lai-fashion, in order to save it.  Better to lose a few incumbents now than the whole shebang in 2022.

 

 

On Abortion

 

Received in email today from The Babylon Bee an appeal from Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) to sign a petition in favor of the "Life at Conception Act" (LACA) that would define 'personhood' as beginning at conception.  Should such an act ever be passed, abortion would be summarily reclassified as 'murder'.  A number of typical and ordinary medical procedures would likewise be summarily recategorized as 'murder'.

How odd that the pro-life movement waited until both houses of Congress and the Executive Mansion are all in the hands of Democrats to bring this issue forward.  They should have done this in 2017 when both houses of Congress and the Executive Mansion were in the hands of Republicans.  Perhaps they were anxious that, were such legislation to fail under perfect laboratory conditions, their entire movement might collapse.

It's not even theoretically possible that LACA might pass now, but this appeal does have the potential to raise money.  Beyond that, LACA would suddenly and, in the manner of unintended consequences, affirm the legitimacy of rape.  How so, you ask?

From a strictly non-denominational perspective, a strictly non-religious perspective, we Americans have a few axioms by which we maintain our society:

1. we assert as a foundational principle that all political power originates in the people.  What powers the government has it has because we the people granted those powers to the government.  There are powers we have not granted, and powers that we have previously granted that we may at some future time un-grant.

2. we have thus far as a society declined to define when life begins, although it seems quite certain that 'birth' is the latest point at which anyone may claim that life has not yet begun.  Conception, likewise, is the earliest point that life can be claimed to have started.

Let us assert, for the sake of argument to be refuted later if necessary, that when two persons (instances of 'we the people') behave in such a manner that it is fair to assume their intent was to create life (as by engaging in unprotected sex), then if pregnancy occurs they have created life.  It would be fair in such a case to assert that life exists from conception because of the ability of those persons — from whom all power originates — to create life.

We are forced to address a second scenario, one in which two persons engage in unprotected sex but do not intend to create life.  This is the situation in a rape, whether statutory or otherwise.  In statutory rape, society has already determined that one party cannot, by operation of law, have intended to create life and, therefore, life has not been created.  The fact that Nature disagrees with the legislature by enabling both parties to conceive is a side issue I am unable to address, but suffice it to say that LACA would severely warp the doctrine of 'statutory rape' by forcing a victim to carry the proceeds of a crime to term.

Relieving the victim of the burden of carrying an unwanted fetus to term is, by this act (LACA), unlawful.  It must therefore be true that rape has been elevated to, if not a completely lawful act, at least to the status of 'not entirely criminal'.

Now, if a person requests an abortion for an unintended pregnancy, the question only need to be asked: "Has life been created?"  For cases where one party was an unwilling participant (rape) there ought to be a criminal charge against the other party, thereby proving that both parties did not intend to create life.  If there is no criminal charge, this should be taken as prima facie evidence that both parties intended to create life, that life was therefore created, and an abortion cannot therefore be legally allowed.

Perhaps one or both parties used a contraceptive and one or both failed and a pregnancy ensued.  Given the nature of consensual sex, proving that contraception was used is problematic, and that's also an issue I can't adequately address.  If one can prove via a civil action that there was not consent to create life, the fact that consent was absent should be enough to disprove life and thus an abortion would be permitted.

Any abortion should be accompanied by a criminal charge or a civil action for damages.

 

Bailouts and IRAs

In less than a month, the government has added $5T to our national debt.  They did it by printing money.  It's backed by nothing.  There can only be one result from that: inflation.  "Big deal!" I just heard someone say.  Yes, indeed, a very big deal, especially if you've already retired.

Washington is spending enough money that its effect will be felt almost immediately.  There are already reports of retail price increases for food.  What this means is that over the next few months and years, virtually everything you want to purchase is going to cost substantially more than it does right now.

If you're a workin' stiff, you can campaign for a wage increase on the grounds that your employer is charging more for whatever your employer sells/provides, but if you're retired:

• you're on Social Security and you're probably not going to get an increase in that,
• you have an IRA with a certain balance, and that balance isn't going to be adjusted upward,
• the stock market is presently in the basement.

That $3,500 cruise you had planned for next Summer?  It'll be $4,000.  For every $7 you were planning to spend, you now have to plan on spending $8.  To put it another way, if you had $400G put aside for your retirement, somebody in Washington just stole $50G.  The balance in the account doesn't change; only its purchasing power does.

Now, if you happen to be one of those fortunate people who are the beneficiaries of the bulk of that $5T bailout, you can grab your pot of gold and put it where it will generate some more wealth for you.  If you're Joe Sixpack, you're shit out of luck.  Better luck next time.

And the reason for all that extra spending?  It's to combat the ill-effects of COVID-19.  The Kennedy Center needs money to help them get past the enforced shutdown, and Planned Parenthood seems to be... well, to be honest, I don't know what they're doing to battle COVID-19, but it's important enough for them to rate $35B.  In fact, almost none of that spending will actually help the man in the street... excuse me, the man forced to quarantine at home.

The real problem here is that all those people who just got the shaft from the financial wizards in Congress will go to the polls in November and re-elect the very same people who just stole 13% of everything the voters had saved, because "Hey, I got a check for $1,200!"  They saw that; they didn't see their retirement savings shrink by 1/7th.

A response to 16 liberal talking points

 

A friend posted these 16 theses on Facebook with the proviso: "(Got another opinion? Put it on your page, not mine)".  Each of these 'liberal talking points' deserves an individual reply, but since I have been disinvited to post anywhere but my own page...  so let it be written; so let it be done.

—==+++==—

1. I believe a country should take care of its weakest members.  A country cannot call itself civilized when its children, disabled, sick, and elderly are neglected.  Period.

Resp:  It is the essence of 'civilization' that the old, the weak, the infirm, and children are cared for and protected when they cannot do so for themselves.  On this count, there cannot be any argument without first abandoning any pretense of civilization oneself.

2. I believe healthcare is a right, not a privilege. Somehow that's interpreted as "I believe Obamacare is the end-all, be-all."  This is not the case.  I'm fully aware that the ACA has problems, that a national healthcare system would require everyone to chip in, and that it's impossible to create one that is devoid of flaws, but I have yet to hear an argument against it that makes "let people die because they can't afford healthcare" a better alternative.  I believe healthcare should be far cheaper than it is, and that everyone should have access to it.  And no, I'm not opposed to paying higher taxes in the name of making that happen.

Resp:  To say that healthcare is a right reveals a gross misunderstanding of the nature of 'rights'.  One cannot have a right without a corresponding responsibility.  My right to own a gun, for instance, carries with it a responsibility not to use it for evil.  What responsibility is associated with a right to healthcare?  It can only be that someone is charged with the responsibility of providing healthcare.  Who would that be?  Here is a case where, again, the productive sector is being asked — no that's not right — is being ordered to provide for someone who can't or won't provide for themselves.  If it were only the old, the weak, and the infirm, our innate moral sense would urge us to do this without coercion, but that's not what's at stake here, is it?

3. I believe education should be affordable and accessible to everyone.  It doesn't necessarily have to be free (though it works in other countries so I'm mystified as to why it can't work in the US), but at the end of the day, there is no excuse for students graduating college saddled with five- or six-figure debt.

Resp:  What we see as 'the education crisis' is largely manufactured by bad public policy.  Suppose the government decided that teachers must be able to get to work teaching and offered a $10,000 tax rebate for any teacher who bought a new car.  What do you think would happen to the price of new cars?  If you guessed that the price of cars would suddenly jump by several thousand dollars, you can see why the price of a college education has quintupled in just a few decades.  (The same analysis, by the way, applies to that 'housing bubble' of a few years back.)  Market forces must be allowed to 'price' the value of a degree in Medieval French Literature or we will soon find ourselves with scholars who can quote verbatim 13th-century love poems but can't be employed anywhere but McDonald's.

4. I don't believe your money should be taken from you and given to people who don't want to work.  I have literally never encountered anyone who believes this.  Ever.  I just have a massive moral problem with a society where a handful of people can possess the majority of the wealth while there are people literally starving to death, freezing to death, or dying because they can't afford to go to the doctor.  Fair wages, lower housing costs, universal healthcare, affordable education, and the wealthy actually paying their share would go a long way toward alleviating this.  Somehow believing that makes me a communist.

Resp:  Jack is not rich because Jill is poor.  There is not a causal relationship between those two things.  There is a causal relationship between 'Jack is rich' and 'Jack runs a government-sanctioned monopoly'.  If you're serious about solving the problem of wealth inequality, you're not going to do so with simple-minded redistributionist schemes.  Plus, recognize that there will always be some inequality; some people are more talented than others, and some don't see money as the be-all and end-all of life.

5. I don't throw around "I'm willing to pay higher taxes" lightly.  If I'm suggesting something that involves paying more, well, it's because I'm fine with paying my share as long as it's actually going to something besides lining corporate pockets or bombing other countries while Americans die without healthcare.

Resp:  Well, you just pinned two things that can't happen without government intervention, and you think the answer is 'more government intervention'.  I don't know how to counter that.  Checkmate.

6. I believe companies should be required to pay their employees a decent, livable wage.  Somehow this is always interpreted as me wanting burger flippers to be able to afford a penthouse apartment and a Mercedes.  What it actually means is that no one should have to work three full-time jobs just to keep their head above water.  Restaurant servers should not have to rely on tips, multi-billion-dollar companies should not have employees on food stamps, workers shouldn't have to work themselves into the ground just to barely make ends meet, and minimum wage should be enough for someone to work 40 hours and live.

Resp:  Should companies have to pay 'x' dollars for work that isn't worth 'x' dollars?  What do you do with employees who don't/can't/won't contribute to your bottom line at least the equivalent of the minimum wage?  Answer: you fire them and replace them with machines.  What happens to your business if ALL your employees produce less than you are forced to pay them?  Your business is now 'your former business'.  Good idea?  Then, too, 'minimum wage jobs' aren't meant to provide a living wage.  They're meant to provide the kind of experience one needs to get a better job.  If you can only make minimum wage, you shouldn't be starting a family.

7. I am not anti-Christian.  I have no desire to stop Christians from being Christians, to close churches, to ban the Bible, to forbid prayer in school, etc.  (BTW, prayer in school is NOT illegal; *compulsory* prayer in school is - and should be - illegal).  All I ask is that Christians recognize *my* right to live according to *my* beliefs.  When I get pissed off that a politician is trying to legislate Scripture into law, I'm not "offended by Christianity" — I'm offended that you're trying to force me to live by your religion's rules.  You know how you get really upset at the thought of Muslims imposing Sharia law on you?  That's how I feel about Christians trying to impose biblical law on me.  Be a Christian.  Do your thing.  Just don't force it on me or mine.

Resp:  THAT is a true 'liberal' position, one that all the founding fathers would have applauded.  It boils down to 'leave me alone', a sentiment we find all through the revolutionary writings, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution.  Where did we go wrong?  We said "Hmm.. clean food and untainted meat: good idea; let's have an FDA..." and we were off and running.

8. I don't believe LGBT people should have more rights than you.  I just believe they should have the *same* rights as you.

Resp:  Another true liberal position, but who says they have fewer rights?  Would that be... umm... Congress?

9. I don't believe illegal immigrants should come to America and have the world at their feet, especially since THIS ISN'T WHAT THEY DO (spoiler: undocumented immigrants are ineligible for all those programs they're supposed to be abusing, and if they're "stealing" your job it's because your employer is hiring illegally).  I'm not opposed to deporting people who are here illegally, but I believe there are far more humane ways to handle undocumented immigration than our current practices (i.e., detaining children, splitting up families, ending DACA, etc).

Resp:  While Republicans (and occasionally Democrats) might dispute this, the Constitution nowhere grants authority to anyone, Congress or the President, to control immigration (you could look it up).  Congress is granted power 'to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization', and that's as far as it goes.  Surprised?  Whether you acknowledge it or not, the root of the current malaise is not 'immigration' per se, but rather the welfare state we have allowed this country to become, that and the fact that Congress has bobbled the ball on that 'uniform Rule of Naturalization' thingy.

10. I don't believe the government should regulate everything, but since greed is such a driving force in our country, we NEED regulations to prevent cut corners, environmental destruction, tainted food/water, unsafe materials in consumable goods or medical equipment, etc.  It's not that I want the government's hands in everything — I just don't trust people trying to make money to ensure that their products/practices/etc. are actually SAFE.  Is the government devoid of shadiness?  Of course not.  But with those regulations in place, consumers have recourse if they're harmed and companies are liable for medical bills, environmental cleanup, etc.  Just kind of seems like common sense when the alternative to government regulation is letting companies bring their bottom line into the equation.

Resp:  I would much rather have Consumer Union inspecting my food than FDA and USDA.  CU has a vested interest in maintaining their reputation for honesty and fair-dealing.  FDA and USDA?  Not so much.  Every drug ever recalled by the FDA was first determined to be safe and effective by the FDA.  As to 'consumers have recourse', I refer you to the vaunted 'tobacco settlement'.  Was any of that monster fine used to recompense anyone actually harmed by smoking?  Nope, and the terms of the settlement immunized the tobacco companies against lawsuits.  Nice people you're hangin' with...

11. I believe our current administration is fascist.  Not because I dislike them or because I can’t get over an election, but because I've spent too many years reading and learning about the Third Reich to miss the similarities.  Not because any administration I dislike must be Nazis, but because things are actually mirroring authoritarian and fascist regimes of the past.

Resp:  If by 'fascist' you mean 'controlling the means of production', then we've been fascist for about 170 years.  I think what you mean is 'totalitarian', and we've been that for about 120 years.  Only the fact that 120 million Americans own 400 million guns and 300 billion rounds of ammunition has kept the government from lining people up against the wall.

12. I believe the systemic racism and misogyny in our society is much worse than many people think, and desperately needs to be addressed.  Which means those with privilege — white, straight, male, economic, etc. — need to start listening, even if you don't like what you're hearing, so we can start dismantling everything that's causing people to be marginalized.

Resp:  Does that mean you want to forbid facial tattoos and eyebrow piercings?  Because if anything 'marginalizes' people, it's that.  Most marginalization of people results from the decisions of the marginalized rather than their skin color or gender.  Efforts to coerce an end to that marginalization results in bakers being sued for turning away profitable business.  Coercion is bad no matter what the reason.

13. I am not interested in coming after your blessed guns, nor is anyone serving in government.  What I am interested in is sensible policies, including background checks, that just MIGHT save one person’s, perhaps a toddler’s, life by the hand of someone who should not have a gun.  (Got another opinion?  Put it on your page, not mine).

Resp:  There is not a single 'sensible gun control policy' in the liberal catechism that would have saved even one life — ever.  If anyone has proof that that's incorrect, I'd like to see it.  120 million Americans own 400 million guns and 300 billion rounds of ammunition.  If any appreciable fraction of those were as dangerous and unstable as they are made out to be, there wouldn't be 30,000 fatal gunshots each year; there would be 30,000 fatal gunshots each month.

14. I believe in so-called political correctness.  I prefer to think it’s social politeness.  If I call you Chuck and you say you prefer to be called Charles I’ll call you Charles.  It’s the polite thing to do.  Not because everyone is a delicate snowflake, but because as Maya Angelou put it, when we know better, we do better.  When someone tells you that a term or phrase is more accurate/less hurtful than the one you're using, you now know better.  So why not do better?  How does it hurt you to NOT hurt another person?

Resp:  I will happily call someone 'Theo' rather than Theodore, Ted, or Eddie, and I may even — if they ask politely — refer to them as 'Your Serene Boffness', but I'll laugh when I do.  Force me to do that?  That's really what this is all about, isn't it?

15. I believe in funding sustainable energy, including offering education to people currently working in coal or oil so they can change jobs.  There are too many sustainable options available for us to continue with coal and oil.  Sorry, billionaires.  Maybe try investing in something else.

Resp:  The laws of physics are immutable.  No amount of wishing will change the fact that wind, solar, hydroelectric, and thermal energy together cannot — that's an important word: cannot — sustain the world's current lifestyle, but it can destroy entire national economies trying prove that they can.

16. I believe that women should not be treated as a separate class of human.  They should be paid the same as men who do the same work, should have the same rights as men and should be free from abuse.  Why on earth shouldn’t they be?

Resp:  The laws of nature are as immutable as the laws of physics.  Men cannot bear children and parthenogenesis doesn't work for our species.  That means that men and women are biologically different, and no one with even half a brain disputes that.  That women must bear the children and are in a relatively fragile state while doing so means that they cannot — there's that word again — work the same as men.  At some point, they are forced (!) to attend to the birthing process and not attend to 'their job'.  Men provide muscle mass and DNA; women create civilization; let's not screw that up.

I think that about covers it.  Bottom line is that I'm a liberal because I think we should take care of each other.  That doesn't mean you should work 80 hours a week so your lazy neighbor can get all your money.  It just means I don't believe there is any scenario in which preventable suffering is an acceptable outcome as long as money is saved.

Resp:  That must mean you're anti-war.  What are you doing voting Democrat (or Republican)?

 

The Theory And Practice Of A Welfare State

 

In a welfare state, wealth is transferred from those who have wealth to those who don't.  Ideally, the recipients of welfare state charity are those who are needy through no fault of their own and who are making an effort to become self-sufficient.  Too often, however, the modern welfare state provides support for those who have no ambition to become self-sufficient, and which is a primary factor in how they became 'needy' in the first place.  A modern industrial society can actually tolerate a certain number of able-bodied slackers, although it's never a good idea since it tends to encourage others to take that low road.

In a modern industrial society, those with ambition and talent can live in comfort not generally available to welfare beneficiaries.  This is, in fact, the primary element that makes the welfare state possible: some people are producing wealth far beyond what is actually necessary for subsistence, and that extra wealth can be tapped in order to provide for those whose wealth-generating ability is below what is necessary for subsistence.  Voila!  A source of wealth and a place to use it.

If the recipients of welfare largesse are encouraged, cajoled, or coerced to end their reliance on public charity, a welfare state can operate for a very long time, and the more robust the underlying economy, the longer the game can be played.

We know, however, that entropy always increases, and this is true even in a modern welfare state.  As benefits become more lush, more people find themselves comfortable with the idea that they are wards of the state.  Eventually, that group becomes a powerful voting bloc, and at that point, the system, like a star that has run out of fuel, is on the path to a spectacular end.  In fact, without a mechanism that forces welfare recipients off the dole after a limited time, that path begins when the welfare state is first established.  As the number of participants who produce no wealth grows, the burden on the actual wealth-producers becomes more and more onerous.  If the number of wealth-producers is also falling (as it is in America today) the collapse of the system is easy to foresee.

Things get out of control when newborns are eligible for state-supplied welfare because there is an incentive, usually in the form of larger payments than are strictly necessary for the newborn's survival.  That is: having a baby becomes profitable and the incentive to become productive and leave the welfare rolls decreases, even if only slightly.  This also moves society toward the point where welfare recipients constitute a voting majority.

In Minnesota recently, a modern scam involving their welfare system threatens to bankrupt their economy.  Working mothers whose income is under a certain figure are eligible for $1,000 per child per month for child care expenses.  A company is formed for the purpose of delivering 'child care' and subscribes a group of families.  It then hires those mothers as 'attendants', and pays them minimum wage for 25 hours per week to watch their own children!  The company bills the state for the 'care' at the maximum allowable rate and, it appears, funnels the excess offshore.  It should not come as a surprise that the proceeds of this scam are used to bring Mom's relatives over from the home country so that they can apply for and get welfare benefits here.

Meanwhile, the sources of the funds for doing all this are having children at a much decreased rate.  The next generation will be much smaller, but supporting a much larger group of welfare clients.

This can't go on.

 

The (longed-for) 28th Amendment

 

There's a chunk of text making the rounds — has made the rounds, in fact, for quite some time — calling for a 28th amendment.  The (proposed, longed-for) 28th amendment would say

Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to Senators and Representatives, and Congress shall make no law that applies to Senators and Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States.

or some variation thereto.

I think I may have started this a long time ago.  At least, I have a text file dated 11/11/2000 at 9:40a that reads

The 28th Amendment

Restoring Sanity to The Law

1. Congress may not exempt itself or its agents from compliance, in whole or in part, with any Federal law or regulation, nor allow regulations which do so, nor shall it encourage state or local jurisdictions to exempt it from compliance with their laws.

2. Any existing Federal law or regulation which exempts Congress from compliance with its provisions, in whole or in part, is hereby rescinded in its entirety.

There's a big difference between the two.  Did you notice?  The one I wrote 17 years ago undoes all the historical damage caused in its absence by automatically revoking all laws currently in existence that violate it.  Leaving that part out is really very 'conservative':  it freezes the current situation in place.  I suppose that makes my version 'regressive' although I personally think of it as 'progress'.

There are many now calling for a con-con, a constitutional convention, to remedy what they see as myriad ills plaguing our nation.  I truly believe most of those ills would evaporate if we were merely to prohibit past, present, and future acts of discrimination by our Congress.

What do you think?

—==+++==—

Update:

While browsing through some old material, I came across an essay I wrote for 'Adverse Reactions', my (quasi-)regular column in Tampa Bay Mensa's newsletter, The Tampa Bay Sounding, and it seems to have been written even earlier than November 2000; probably July 2000.  It was about campaign finance reform and it was called The Big Lie.  That essay was the impetus for the original suggestion.

 

The Great 'Right v Left' Lie

 

Of all the memes that can lead our thinking astray, the notion that in American politics there is a "right wing" versus a "left wing" is the most common, the most incorrect, and the most dangerous.  It derives from the tradition in the French legislature that the royalists sit on one side of the assembly and the populists on the other, and this is what makes it incorrect in modern America.  Our legislators, both R and D, routinely claim to be working for the benefit of their constituents — and some do, on occasion — but their primary goal is clearly not to enhance their constituents' freedom, but rather to expand their own power.  They do this by "making a federal case of it" in every instance and on every issue.  They are all (with a very few exceptions) 'royalists'.  This echoes a remark by Judge Andrew Napolitano that there is only one party in American politics: The Big-Government Party, that has a left wing and a right wing.

This meme is so common that anyone who suggests it might be false immediately becomes suspect of having ulterior motives, whereas the 'motive' in such cases is merely to open others' eyes to the truth.  Such crusaders may be consoled by the knowledge that every true thing was first believed by a single person before being believed by dozens, hundreds, millions, and, finally, everyone.

The meme is dangerous because it leads us to believe that those politicians who identify with our side are correct and others who identify with their side are incorrect when, in truth, they are all on the same side, the side of The Big-Government Party.  We thus support those who are guiding us toward ever more intrusive government, ever more dilution of our freedom, in the mistaken belief that we are on the side of the angels.

So, if there really is not a left-right distinction, what accounts for the division so evident among Americans today?  What defines the divide we can so clearly see?

The division is between individualists and collectivists.  It is a statist-v-libertarian conflict.  On one side are those (statists) who subscribe to the notion that the citizen exists for the purposes of the state; these are opposed by those who place the individual above the collective, who insist that the collective exists to fulfill the individual, rather than the other way around.  This is, in fact, the guiding principle upon which our nation was founded.  We find in the Declaration of Independence Jefferson asserting that "...to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men...".  The bedrock of our system is libertarian in nature: that the state exists to fulfill the individual.

Note that it says "to secure these rights", not 'secure our safety'.  Our government was created to keep us free, not safe, yet when the USA PATRIOT Act was proposed in the wake of 9-11 only one Senator (Russ Feingold) and one Representative (Ron Paul) objected and voted 'no'.  Every other member of Congress voted to give the government enormous power over its citizens, power that was unconstitutionally usurped from those same citizens.  With few exceptions, we the people have sent to represent us those who think their job is to keep us safe — even if it means enslaving us.

Whether Democrat or Republican, left or right, nearly all of them are collectivists.  Why?

It derives, I believe, from our natural tendency to acquire.  Whether we understand it or not, economic principles are burned into our very being.  We understand intuitively that it is better to have and not need than to need and not have, and so we gather wood before winter and save our pennies for a rainy day.  Along comes a politician who says "Elect me and I'll see that you have whatever the current hot-button issue is!" and our natural reaction is "Great!  That means I won't have to do that for myself!" and we cast our vote accordingly.

A politician who promises to get government out of our way so that we can do things for ourselves is much less enticing than one who promises to do those things for us.  It's only natural.  How can we delude ourselves into thinking that we are about to get the mythical free lunch?   We can because we want to.

At the very base, our problems with intrusive government start with our desire to have a pony.  Adults are supposed to know that a pony is expensive to start with and requires more expenditures for food, health care, and lodging, but, like children, we ignore those uncomfortable facts when it's our pony.

The fault is truly not in our stars but in ourselves.

If you're content with being a secure peon rather than a free person, you need not change a thing.

 

reg•u•late, v.t.

 

From Noah Webster's dictionary, 1828

reg•u•late, verb transitive

1. To adjust by rule, method or established mode;  as, to regulate weights and measures;  to regulate the assize of bread;  to regulate our moral conduct by the laws of God and of society;  to regulate our manners by the customary forms.

2. To put in good order;  as, to regulate the disordered state of a nation or its finances.

3. To subject to rules or restrictions;  as, to regulate trade;  to regulate diet.

Note that placing rules and restrictions on a subject was the last thing Revolutionary era Americans thought of when they said 'regulate'.  The first thing they thought of was 'adjustment':  to make something work properly, the way one might adjust a clock to keep correct time.  Thus, a 'well-regulated militia' is one that functions as a unit and all of whom know how to clean, load, and fire their weapons.  To 'regulate commerce' did not mean 'suffocate under a mountain of legislation';  it meant 'make it work the way it should'.

Under Congress' article I section 8 power to 'regulate commerce among the states' the implication was that Congress would facilitate commerce rather than micromanage it.  This was the primary impetus behind FDR's threat to pack the Supreme Court with additional judges who would see things his way:  FDR wanted more power than the interstate commerce (hereafter IC) clause allowed because his vision was of a larger, more powerful central government that could mold the economy in ways that would dispel the economic depression of the 30s and 40s.  He got his needed reinterpretation and today almost everything Congress does is justified under those expanded IC powers.  That new interpretation is so expansive that the Gun Free School Zones Act was cast as justified by the IC clause because it claimed to protect future consumers in IC!

In fact, although article I section 8 grants power to Congress in only 17 specific areas, this new interpretation of the IC clause is so broad that it can truly be said that article I section 8 now grants power in 16 specific areas and one other which is 'anything else Congress wants'.

Virtually everything we see as 'wrong' with the federal government today arises from that faulty interpretation:  we are supposed to be living in The Free Trade Zone Of The United States but are instead saddled with rules that require (just as one example) special certification for over-the-road long haul drivers who operate in more than one state — and those rules cost money.  In the one recent case where Congress should have been using its original powers to prevent damage to the consumer, they conspired with a state to promote it.  Before 1974, if you wanted to fly to Dallas, you landed at Love Field (DAL), 5 miles NW of downtown.  When DFW was proposed as Dallas' new airport, Texas asked for and Congress agreed to limit the use of Love Field in order to promote DFW (and American Airlines).  As a result, as soon as DFW was operational, the FAA no longer accepted flight plans for Love Field to or from airports outside Texas.  You could then fly DAL-Abilene-Seattle, or DAL-ElPaso-Hawaii, or DAL-Houston-Paris, but you could not fly non-stop to any of those destinations unless you flew from DFW.  The 40-year agreement expired in 2014 having cost Southwest Airlines 40 years of business out of Love Field and funneling most of that business to America Airlines which, for all intents and purposes, owns DFW.

Because of Congress' new-found power over the economy, corporations whatever their size and, in fact, entire industries are at the mercy of Congress which now wields the power of life and death over them.  Is it any wonder Washington DC is awash in corporate lobbyists and campaign contributions?  People who complain about the corrupting influence of corporate money over politics are complaining of the wrong thing.  They should be complaining about the corrupting influence of the incorrectly-interpreted IC clause.

 

What can the government do?

 

I just had an interesting set-to with an acquaintance regarding what our government can (lawfully) do.  He said (paraphrased) "if Congress passes it and the President signs it, it must be okay.  They have the consent of the governed because they were lawfully elected."

I have to admit I have no come-back for this line of reasoning.  I know it would be useless to say anything rational like "Article I section 8 begins 'Congress shall have the power to...'.  Why would they go to the trouble to list all the things Congress can do when it's obvious Congress can do anything the President will let them do?"

I have the uncomfortable feeling that his attitude is widely-held among the low-information voters who do the electing.  It's why I keep predicting collapse.  They're like the lady who told her bank "I can't be out of money.  I still have checks."

 

Those damned wily Democrats! (snort)

 

Well, no doubt about it, this economy is sicksicksick and it's all Obama's fault.

At least, that's what some people would like you to think.  Those people would be Republicans.  In fairness, the Democrats want you to believe that the whole mess is directly attributable to the GOP.  Is it a breath mint or is it a candy mint?  Indeed, it's both.

Don't believe me?  Observe:

Here's how the 'budget process' works:  the President puts together a budget and ships it over to Congress for its approval, House first, then the Senate because all revenue bills must originate in the House.  The two houses of Congress massage the budget then conference on the changes, if any, and pass the approved budget back to 1600 Pennsylvania for a signature.  The President signs the budget bill and then instructs the IRS to go collect the taxes authorized by the budget.

If the President doesn't like what Congress did to the budget (if they did anything) the President can veto it.  Congress can override the veto if 2/3rds of both houses insist on their version.  If the veto isn't overridden, there is no budget and the IRS has no authority to collect any taxes.  Everything stops for lack of funding.

So...  you can pass a budget with simple majorities in both houses if the President agrees.  If the President doesn't agree, you'll need supermajorities of both houses to get a new budget.

The flip side of that coin is this:  If you have a majority in even one house, you can force spending down to the level you will tolerate.  If the President is on your side, you only need 1/3rd of one house to sustain a veto.  That is, 'keeping things from happening' takes only a fraction of the power that 'making things happen' takes.

If your party has the White House and majorities in both houses of Congress, you can pretty much do as you please, except that the Senate can filibuster a bill to death with a mere 41 'nay' votes on cloture.  The last time the Republicans didn't have 41 votes in the Senate was 1979, the 95th Congress.  Since 1980, the GOP has had the ability to rein in spending in nine Congresses out of sixteen.  Add in 'enough juice to sustain a veto' and the Dems have only had an unassailable upper hand for something like seven years out of the last thirty-two.  Add in 'enough Senate votes to pull off a filibuster', and the Dems have never (since 1980) been able to get whatever they wanted.

Oh.  I hear you protesting that some Republicans regularly cast Democrat-ish votes and can't be relied upon to stand foursquare behind the party's goals.  That's a problem, but I'm not in your party, so it's your problem.

All I need you Republicans to do is stop complaining about how bad the Democrats are.

P.s.:  the same analysis applies to every law, not just the budget, and it applies equally to both parties.  The numbers might vary a little, but the overall analysis is identical.

 

Why 'Strict Constructionism'?

 

The recent candidacy of Ron Paul struck a chord with many Americans largely because of Dr. Paul's strict adherence to Constitutional principles.  He is known in the House of Representatives as 'Dr. No' because his is often the one 'nay' vote when all others vote 'yea'.  This was the case when the USA PATRIOT ACT came before the House.  He is the only Representative to have voted against it.  With hindsight, many have discovered what it was he found so objectionable.

So perhaps it's time, at last, to ask why following the Constitution strictly is so all-fired important.

1. Background – How Legislation Happens
   

   In 1994 Newt Gingrich and the Republicans took control of Congress launching their 'Contract With America', promising to reduce the size of government, lessen the impact of regulations, and generally to make government more responsive to the needs of the people.  Of the 10 clauses in their Contract With America, ten promises they made in exchange for our votes, they managed to deliver two.  I don't want to discuss whether this was a good thing or a bad thing, but I want to use it as a lesson in legislating and the impact of the Constitution.
   

   If we read the Constitution 'for comprehension' we get an unusual education.  We come away from it with the notion that it's (supposed to be) very difficult to get legislation passed.  First, you need majorities in both houses, and then you need the approval of the Executive.  If the Executive disapproves (vetoes the bill) it takes 2/3rds of both houses to override the veto.  That's a lot.
   

   It's very much simpler to prevent things from happening, and it's clear that's what the Framers intended.  To prevent things from happening you only need a majority in one house.  If the Executive agrees that something ought not happen, you only need 1/3rd control of one house to sustain the veto.  Like jiu-jitsu, it takes less than half the effort to halt the process as it does to push it forward.  This is not an accident, and it's in large measure why the Contract With America was a failure.
   

   When the Senate was appointed by the state legislatures, there were three clearly distinct factions, and getting legislation passed required substantial agreement among all of them or the overwhelming agreement of two.  The intent of the Framers was that only laws that were both good for the people and good for the states would ever see daylight.
   

   In 2006 the Democrats swept into power in mid-term elections largely on their promise to end the War in Iraq.  Once in power, however, they had a long series of excuses as to why they couldn't manage it.  As we have seen above, all of that is bogus, because to stop a war you merely have to cut funding.  That is, you need to prevent an appropriation bill going forward.  The Democrats had slim majorities in both houses of Congress and yet couldn't manage to stop the minority Republicans ramming through a supplemental appropriation adequate to continue the war.
   

   The American people, largely unaware of what's in the Constitution, gritted their teeth and muttered "Curses !  Foiled again !"  (Oh, did I misspell 'fooled'?)
   

2. Why there are so many laws?
   

   You don't have to be in Mensa to figure out that something has gone seriously wrong with that plan.  We now have laws that are clearly no good for the states, and laws that are clearly no good for the people.  'NAFTA' jumps to mind as a single example that fits both:  it imposes draconian restrictions on the states' ability to police their own territory and this, in turn, causes increased danger for motorists confronted by unsafe vehicles on their highways.  It's good primarily for corporations and it's a continuation of America's long tradition of mercantilism — government action on behalf of 'big business'.
   

   'Federalism' is the system in which power is divided between a central government and multiple states (in our case).  The idea is that the central government has the ability to limit actions by the states and the states have the ability to limit actions by the central government due to each having powers in different arenas.  Few Americans today understand this concept and consequently develop what the Framers would have considered bizarre notions of the relationship between the states and the central government.  Many people today assume that any law passed by Congress and signed by the President binds the states absolutely.  Nothing could be further from the truth.
   

   The problem is 'bi-partisanship'.  That is the doctrine that 'laws are OK if almost everybody agrees they're OK'.
   

   Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution disagrees.  It says (among other things):
   

   "Section 8 - Powers of Congress
   
   The Congress shall have Power To ...
   
   ...legislate in seventeen fairly specific areas,
   
   And ...
   
   To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."
   

   The plain wording of the Constitution says 'just these things and no others'.  Not including a Department of Labor.  Not including a Department of Energy.  Not including a Department of Education.  Not including a Department of Housing and Urban Development.  Not including the FBI, or the CIA, or the ATF, or the FDA, or the FCC, and not including a host of other alphabet-soup agencies.
   

   'But... but... but...' I can hear you protesting, 'no FAA??  Do you want planes crashing in mid-air??'.  Well, no, and I suspect few people do, but if you think you need an FAA there's a method enshrined within the Constitution itself for fixing that;  it's called 'the amendment process'.  We have an FAA today without there being an amendment to legalize it because the American people looked at the problem and said: "That sounds like a good idea;  I won't object."  We have a Federal Reserve System for the same reason.  We have a Department of Education for the same reason.  We have a myriad of departments and agencies for the same reason.
   

   And none of them are legal, because Congress never had the authority to create them.
   

   Instead, we were supposed to have 50 potentially-different solutions being tried more-or-less simultaneously, a technique known as 'massively-parallel trial-and-error'.  In such an environment we would pretty soon understand that the Wisconsin Plan for Educational Improvement is a winner and the other 49 are something less, and that the Vermont Approach to Crime Reduction is the method we want to switch to next legislative session.  That's federalism.
   

   What we have, alas, is a one-size-fits-all solution mandated by the central government upon the states, none of whom any longer have the will to resist given that most of their citizens think that's the way the system works.  In fact, it's the way the system is broken because it turns out that one size does not fit all.
   

   In the rare case that a state actually challenges a federal law in federal court (does that sound like a stacked deck?) the federal court judges almost invariably side with the ones who pay the bill.  They dance with the one 'at brung 'em.  In the 2005 Raich v Gonzales, the Supreme Court had the opportunity to comment on the absolute absence of federal authority to deal with drugs of any sort and declined to do so.
   

   Beyond that, there are those pesky amendments 1 through 10, known as The Bill of Rights.  That is, in my opinion, a horrible name for them.  It gives people the impression that those amendments grant us some rights.  That's not even approximately true.  Those amendments are all, each and every one of them, restrictions on the powers of the central government.  "Congress shall make no law...";  "...shall not be infringed...";  "No soldier shall...";  "...no warrants shall issue...";  "No person shall be held...";  "Excessive bail shall not be required...";  "...shall not be construed...".  The ones which come closest to actually granting something are #6:  "...the accused shall enjoy...",  #7:  "...the right ... shall be preserved...",  and #10:  "...reserved to the States...".  The clear and unmistakeable conclusion from their language is that these are all rights which existed before there was a Bill of Rights and before there was a Constitution and which, presumably, will still be with us after there is no longer a Constitution.
   

   It is, nevertheless, clear that we are now living in post-Constitutional America, and we did it to ourselves.  We continually vote for the politician who promises to do the most (and to bring home the most loot).  We never seem to question the assumption that the function of Congress is to pass more laws.  In fact, we encourage politicians to pass more laws;  we insist on bi-partisanship;  we insist that our Congressfolk must be 'team players' so that they can get more done.
   

   The result, among other things, is a tax code which, when printed, occupies eight feet of shelf space.  No one has ever read the entire thing, not even the so-called experts at IRS.  No one knows what it says.  No one understands it, and no one can follow its labyrinthine ways, and everyone, even the Commissioner of the IRS, has violated some of its many conflicting provisions.  We are all criminals, and we volunteered for it.
   

3. Why you should care
   

   The Declaration of Independence tells us why governments exist: we are "...endowed ... with certain unalienable rights; ... that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men...".  Everybody got that?  Government exists to secure your rights.  It goes further.  It says that when the government is not doing that, we have "...the right ... to alter or abolish it...".  That's pretty revolutionary talk.
   

   The Constitution elaborates on this, especially in Article One, Section Eight that I mentioned earlier.  Congress is there given certain powers and the presumption is that Congress will use those powers to fulfill the proper function of government, that is:  securing the rights of we, the people.
   

   That's not happening.  Every day Congress passes another law that violates that principle.  They've even passed laws (like the USA PATRIOT Act) that violate our rights wholesale, and people shrug it off as if that's the way things ought to be.
   

   But we know, deep down, that something is wrong.  The government acts as if we, the people, exist to fulfill the needs of government.  When we open our eyes and read our own history we have no trouble understanding that, to the contrary, government exists to fulfill our needs.
   

   So...  how did we get here?  And where, exactly, is 'here'?
   

   'Here' is post-Constitutional America.  President George W Bush is reported to have snapped at one of his aides who warned him of a potentially-unConstitutional act:  "Don't keep throwing the Constitution in my face.  It's just a god-damned piece of paper."  There was a suitably-short period of outrage among those who think the Constitution is not, in fact, "just a god-damned piece of paper".  Since they were in the minority, their outrage never amounted to much in a country which is now, de facto if not de jure, a democracy;  where the bulk of the populace thinks the Bill of Rights can be repealed by a popular vote.
   

   We're here because we've stopped understanding the Constitution.  We don't understand it because it's not much taught in the schools these days, and that's at least understandable.  Jefferson warned us:  "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."  Part of that education must be to know whence we came and whither we go.  We cannot rely on schools which are run by the government to teach our children that the government is the servant.  We might as well expect Catholic schools to teach their students that the Pope is just as fallible as anyone else.  Fuhgeddaboudit.
   

   Instead, we must educate ourselves about what the Constitution says, and even more importantly, what it doesn't say.  And we have to teach others.  Whenever someone says  "There oughta be a law!" we should ask ourselves whether, in fact, there really ought to be a law and what it will cost us, not simply in money, but in personal liberty, if there is such a law.  And maybe we should stand up and say, in reply, no, there oughtn't be a law.
   

   Lyndon Johnson famously said:  "You do not examine legislation in light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered."  That's something we need to keep constantly in mind.  And we need to make sure nobody else forgets, either.
   

4. What you can do about it
   

   September 17th is 'Constitution Day'.  It commemorates the day in 1787 when 39 convention delegates affixed their signatures to the Constitution.  Exiting the building, Benjamin Franklin was accosted by a woman who demanded:  "Dr. Franklin, what sort of government have you given us?"  Franklin responded:  "A republic, madam, if you can keep it."
   

   What can we do to keep it?
   

   Most of us limit our 'public politics' to writing letters to the editor, and that's a great way to raise awareness of this magnificent document among our communities.  So, first, speak up.
   

   I won't suggest volunteering to address an American History class at your local school since most of us who don't have stage fright might still feel some trepidation about taking on a subject as vast as The Constitution.  We do, however, have to put ourselves in the position of being able to do that if we're to be effective spokesfolk for our way of life.  So, second, educate yourself.  Read the Constitution 'for comprehension'.  Learn what our government should be doing, and what's it's doing that it shouldn't be doing.  And complain.  The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
   

   Third, and most importantly, hold your legislators' feet to the fire.  Don't ask them "what are you going to do in Washington?"  Ask them "what unconstitutional laws are you going to work to get repealed if we send you?"  All day long our legislators hear "Gimme, gimme, gimme".  It's only natural for them to concentrate on the actions so many of their constituents demand.  We have to change that if we're going to keep our republic and our Constitution.
   

5. Appendix A
   

   I spoke earlier about the FAA and that it has no Constitutional cachet.
   

   Years ago I approached an official of the Libertarian Party and challenged him:  "OK, the FAA is unconstitutional, but isn't this something the government has to do to keep planes from falling out of the air?"
   

   He paused a moment to formulate an answer and then asked in return:  "If the President went on TV tonight and announced that at the end of the month/year/fiscal year/whatever the FAA would cease to exist, what would happen?"
   

   I must have had a dumb-founded look on my face, so he continued:
   

   "At 9am on the following Monday morning, the CEOs of Continental, United, Delta, USAir, Southwest, and several other carriers would all be in the same conference room to discuss what they were going to do without a government-run FAA.  And within the week they would announce the formation of 'FAA, Inc', and every Air Traffic Controller from Bangor to San Diego would have received a job offer with the new company because Delta doesn't want their airplanes colliding with United's airplanes any more than you do."
   

   The point he wanted to make was that services, if they're something valuable, will be provided by the free market.  How do you know if they're 'valuable'?  If people are willing to pay for the service, they're valuable, and someone will step forward to supply the service for a fee.  If the government doesn't structure a monopoly, there will even be competition by vendors vying to provide the service to you and to collect your money.
   

   What if people aren't willing to pay for the service?  In that case, it's fair to ask whether that service actually has value.  Under the current regime, someone in Washington decides that some service, foreign aid perhaps, has value, and taxes you for it whether you agree with their assessment or not.  This is the heart of the old saw that 'foreign aid is an excellent method for transferring wealth from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries'.
   

   Most government 'services' would quickly go out of business if they were forced to rely on voluntary contributions from people who couldn't live without that benefit.  It has even been suggested that all of government be funded strictly on voluntary contributions.
   

   I wonder what size government that would get us?
   

6. Appendix B
   

   Government isn't very good at doing most things.
   

   The Framers of the Constitution understood the nature of bureaucracy.  It was little different then than it is today.  The basic problem is one of 'mode'.  We have this tendency to engage in mono-modal problem-solving.  We have a problem, so we all gather together and discuss it and take a vote, and whatever 51% of us decide is what we all do.  Typically, if the problem is big enough, we'll hand it over to some bureaucrat for solving and give that bureaucrat a budget.
   

   Well, if you give me a big budget and a staff and tell me to solve some problem, I absolutely guarantee that it will not be solved for several years... possibly never... because the instant I solve that problem, I'm out of a job.  It's my civic duty to keep unemployment low, especially mine.
   

   The Framers understood this, and so they handed over to the central government a very small menu of tasks, and they are all (or almost all) tasks that truly require centralized control or coordination or both.  So the Congress has the power to establish post offices and post roads, but not the power to run them.  The federal government is not assigned responsibility for delivering the mail, just for saying where the depots will be and how to get from one to the other.
   

   Big-government fanatics are fond of pointing to the Interstate Highway System as an example of a task that isn't in the Constitution but surely needed to be done.  Until just recently the contrary arguments were strained and relied primarily on philosophy.  We now have the perfect countervailing argument.
   

   I-35W crosses the Mississippi River in Minneapolis MN,  or did.  On August 1st, 2007 it collapsed into the river killing 13 and injuring 111.  The cause was faulty maintenance.  Engineering reports over the course of at least four years indicated advancing problems with the bridge.  Oddly, these problems were not addressed in a timely fashion.  The State of Minnesota, the bridge's owner, is not capable of being sued because of the doctrine of 'sovereign immunity'.
   

   Had that bridge been privately-owned, can anyone seriously assert that those engineering reports would have been ignored?  Or that, having been ignored, the private owner could hide behind sovereign immunity?  Because the latter is impossible, the former is implausible.  There would still be a bridge over the Mississippi at Minneapolis.  Yes, it would cost money to cross it, but which would you rather: a bridge toll or a death toll?

    

The Size of Government

 

Over on Sipsey Street ( http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/ ) they're talking about secession and the perils of "Leviathan government".  Well, I mostly sympathize with them, being a closet anarchist myself, but all they do is complain about Leviathan;  they might as well complain about the weather.

It's true that the size of government is in direct proportion to how much of our liberty it consumes.  Is there anything we can really do about it?

The answer is that 'there should be'.  In fact, controlling the size of government ought to be a relatively straight-forward proposition.  The Constitution, after all, is rigged in favor of smaller government.  The only reason we've got a three trillion dollar federal budget is that we just don't understand how the system works.  Either that, or we're too stupid (as a nation) to figure it out.

OK, so how did we get such a monstrous-sized government?  Answer: bipartisanship.  It's the drive to be seen as 'a team player', to 'go along to get along', and to not be seen as 'blocking reforms' that impel legislators to vote for ever-bigger government programs...  which, not coincidentally, implies ever-bigger government.

I pointed out elsewhere that the federal laws which we are all expected to comply with are printed in books which occupy nearly forty (40) feet of shelf space.  Each new government program — each new page in the CFR — involves specifying things we-the-people must do and/or things we-the-people may not do, along with advantages granted to some and disadvantages dispensed to others, almost none of which are within Congress' article 1 section 8 grant of authority.  Oops...

But the question on the floor is 'how do we reverse this?'.  It's actually simpler than it might seem, although killing bipartisanship may be the hardest part.

Yes, bipartisanship has to go.  It must be replaced with rabid partisanship:  screw your program; I want mine!  Cast in that form, the problem looks insoluble.  What Congress(wo)man is going to be the proverbial 'dog in the manger'?  You still have to 'bring home the bacon', right?  The problem won't be solved in any meaningful sense until the day there is no bacon to be brought home.  Fortunately (or, for some, 'unfortunately'), we're almost there.  We are on the precipice of a financial catastrophe which is going to make 1929 look like an unsuccessful PTA bake-sale.  The pig is dead.

Aside:  government has only three ways to get the money with which to pay for the programs it enacts:

1. tax it
2. borrow it
3. print it

In the Dead Pig Scenario, option-1 is out because people are out-of-work, broke, destitute.  They're going on welfare, not paying their taxes.  Option-2 is also out because by this point, potential borrowers are beginning to suspect they might not get repaid, and they are (understandably) reluctant to throw good money after bad.  Option-3 is the method Germany chose when its WW-I war reparations bankrupted their economy.  We all know how that worked out — people with wheelbarrows-full of Deutschmarks trying to buy bread.  The German people grumbled and groused but there wasn't much they could do about it.

It's too dangerous to do that in early-21^st-century America;  we have guns, and a revolution here would not be pretty.  History would look back at The Reign Of Terror and decide that, compared to the upheaval in the United States, it wasn't all that bad...

So, what's a Congress to do when all of its favorite options are foreclosed?  The size of government must shrink.  The government will be forced to subsist on what the (collapsed) economy can still manage to produce.  Less, actually;  you have to maintain the productive workforce — the economy's 'seed corn' — as a first priority;  government can have what's left over, and it won't be much.

Yes, this suggests a catastrophic reduction in the size of government.  Social Security checks would stop...  dead.  Welfare would stop...  dead.  Pell grants would stop...  dead.  Highway Trust Fund payments would stop...  dead.

Wouldn't it be a better idea to alter course before this happens?  Wouldn't it be a better idea to stop spending money we don't have — money we have to tax, borrow, or print — before it becomes necessary to push that big red 'POWER OFF' button?  Wouldn't it be a better idea to scale back the size of government before it all comes crashing down?

You can do it.

In fact, only you can do it.  Tell Congress:  "Stop spending.  Stop spending regardless how noble the cause.  Stop thinking about new programs you're beginning to think about.  Stop thinking about how you can be the White Knight riding to the rescue of the downtrodden.  Start thinking about programs you can eliminate...  then eliminate them.  Start thinking about programs you can't eliminate...  and eliminate them anyway.  Stop worrying about getting a 'bad rep' as a lone wolf who isn't a team-player.  Worry about me, your constituent."

If you decide this is all beyond your power to influence up-or-down, buy ammunition.

You're going to need it.