What is the Purpose of Law Enforcement?

John Locke wrote that "All mankind... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions." This idea, that all men are entitled to their own lives and private property, is one of the driving philosophies behind both the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. The Declaration of Independence specifies that "to secure these rights, (Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness) Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..." In short, the entire American project is based on the idea that governments exist for the sole purpose of allowing the individual to live in freedom, and to act solely in protection of that freedom.

The Bill of Rights contains a number of protections designed to preserve these freedoms. In addition to the commonly cited protections of speech and religious freedom, there are also protections of property. The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable search and seizure, and the Fifth guarantees due process and forbids government from confiscating personal property without proper compensation.

Government, however, has gone completely off the rails, and now routinely treats individuals and their property as expendable resources in the prosecution of laws that neither protect freedom nor personal property. This is particularly apparent in the failure known as the War on Drugs, where billions of dollars are spent by the federal government waging a bloody and pointless war against marijuana, a substance that is generally regarded to be no more harmful than alcohol.

Case in point: the story of Craig Patty, owner of a small northern Texas trucking company. Without Patty's knowledge or consent, the Drug Enforcement Agency recruited one of Patty's drivers to transport marijuana from the Mexico border as part of an undercover operation. Patty was told that his truck was undergoing repairs in a Houston shop, while it was actually 1,000 miles away being used by a government agency to ferry drugs. In the end, the operation was uncovered by members of a Mexican drug cartel, and the driver was gunned down, with the truck sustaining nearly $100,000 worth of damage in the fusillade. Patty, whom the DEA couldn't be bothered to inform was having his truck used for drug enforcement activities, has asked the DEA to pay for the damages. Eight months later, the DEA is still stonewalling his requests. Patty's next step is a lawsuit against the agency to recover what is rightfully his.

Let's go back to the Fifth Amendment for a second. Amendment V clearly states that private property cannot be seized for public use without just compensation. Clearly, Craig Patty's truck is private property, and it was clearly seized for public use by the Drug Enforcement Agency. Set aside for a moment the fact that what the DEA did was reckless and irresponsible; at the very least they owe Patty for the bullet holes in his truck.

Our government is out of control, and for some reason believes that the farce known as the War on Drugs absolves them of any kind of duty to act reasonably and responsibly. Instead, they are perfectly fine with private citizens being killed and private property being destroyed in order to continue enforcing laws that aren't in line with their duty to preserve life, liberty, and property.

When the role of the citizen is to support the law, instead of the other way around, the legitimate purpose of government has been violated.

The Military-Industrial Complex vs. the Pentagon - UPDATED

P.J. O'Rourke once commented that "When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators." Nowhere may this observation be more apparent than in the realm of military contracts. Companies which supply weapons systems to the U.S. military are found alongside oil companies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, tech giants, and banking institutions on the Fortune 500 list; Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Honeywell, and General Dynamics are all in the top 100. In the United States, war is big business; in fact, the United States alone makes up nearly 50% of worldwide defense spending. And, since all of that spending is controlled directly by Congress, it makes sense that military contractors would shell out big bucks to purchase legislative results that support their bottom line.

A case in point comes today via NBC News, which reports on defense department allocations of $3 billion earmarked for upgrades to the U.S. fleet of M1 Abrams main battle tanks. Now here's the catch: the Pentagon doesn't want to make the upgrades. Most of the M1 fleet, some 3,000 Abrams units, sit unused and idle, outside in the elements, at a California military storage complex. The Army's Chief of Staff, Ray Odierno, says the refurbishment effort will be made to "280 tanks that we simply do not need."

So, in an era of trillion-dollar-plus budget deficits, the Pentagon has told Congress "no thanks" to a spending authorization. However, rather than take this as an opportunity to save a few bucks, Congress is planning on shoving the refurbishment down the Army's throat. Why? Well, as it turns out, General Dynamics, the maker of the M1 Abrams, has purchased some friends in Washington:

But top Army officials have so far been unable to get political traction to kill the M1. Part of the reason is that General Dynamics and its well-connected lobbyists have been carrying a large checkbook and a sheaf of pro-tank talking points around on the Hill.

For example, when House Armed Services Committee member Hank Johnson, D-Ga., held a campaign fundraiser at a wood-panelled Capitol Hill steakhouse called the Caucus Room just before Christmas last year, someone from GD brought along a $1,500 check for his reelection campaign. Several months later, Johnson signed a letter to the Pentagon supporting funding for the tank. Johnson spokesman Andy Phelan said the congressman has consistently supported the M-1 “because he doesn't think shutting down the production line is in the national interest."

Lawmakers get three basic benefits out of this kind of reckless defense spending. One, they get to use it as proof that they are pro-military (this works best if you have an 'R' after your name). Two, they get to use the money to keep defense manufacturing jobs in their districts. Three, they get their campaigns funded with truckloads of weapons money.

The average American, however, loses out (unless they have a job with one of the defense contractors), first because they are paying for all of this waste, and second because the massive amount of military spending also results in more war, since the only good reason for having such a big military is to use it. Finally, and most importantly, this kind of purchase of influence damages liberty.

In 1960, as he prepared to leave office, President Dwight Eisenhower warned about the rise of the military-industrial complex:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

Eisenhower was right, and we as Americans have not done our job in remaining "alert and knowledgeable." We have allowed ourselves to blur the line between supporting American defense and supporting the American war machine. As a result, we have damaged our liberty and allowed corporatism, not capitalism, to become our primary economic system.

Americans must demand that their representatives represent them, not just those who have the means to purchase influence.

Update: Received this from a reader, who wishes to remain anonymous due to her current enlistment in the Army:

I really appreciated your most recent blog on unnecessary equipment being purchased for the army. I see that all the time at the armory, from huge aircraft towes that we literally cant use because they wont fit into the hangar, or the strange shipment of six huge flat screen 3-D TV's showing up in our supply room. It's even a huge problem of over-recruiment of people like me, who have been in for over four years, getting paid to stand around and "look busy."

Libertarians For Life

As you are aware if you know me personally, or have been reading this site for awhile, I am ardently pro-life. In fact, the abortion issue is one of only two issues that I disagree with the official Libertarian Party position on (the other being same-sex marriage). Furthermore, of the two positions, I consider abortion to be far more important, since I view it as literally a question of life and death.

Therefore, I was pleased to come across the Libertarians for Life page today, via Brian Irving's blog. Libertarians for Life exists to present "the pro-life case to libertarians, and the libertarian case to pro-lifers." They also outline a libertarian case for life similar to that which I have tried to outline here on a few occasions:

1. Human offspring are human beings, persons from conception, whether that takes place as natural or artificial fertilization, by cloning, or by any other means.

2. Abortion is homicide -- the killing of one person by another.

3. One's right to control one's own body does not allow violating the obligation not to aggress. There is never a right to kill an innocent person. Prenatally, we are all innocent persons.

4. A prenatal child has the right to be in the mother's body. Parents have no right to evict their children from the crib or from the womb and let them die. Instead both parents, the father as well as the mother, owe them support and protection from harm.

5. No government, nor any individual, has a just power to legally "de-person" any one of us, born or preborn.

6. The proper purpose of the law is to side with the innocent, not against them.

I find point #5 particularly compelling; allowing a government to revoke "personhood" from a human being is a roadmap to disaster, as the many cases of genocide in human history have demonstrated. Since I see no significant ontological difference between being "born" and "unborn," allowing government to remove protection against aggression from the unborn is only a step away from allowing it to happen to those of us who have exited the womb.

Take a look at the L4L article library here.

DOJ: Sure You Can Exercise Your Religion, As Long As You Give Up Your Livelihood

Catholics believe that abortion and birth control are a sin. While I agree with them with regards to abortion, I disagree with them regarding birth control (there's a reason that I'm 32, married, and have no biological children). I do, however, respect their right to hold such a belief. The Department of Justice, however, has no such respect:

The Justice Department last week presented the Newland family of Colorado--who own Hercules Industries, a heating, ventilation and air-conditioning business--with what amounted to an ultimatum: Give up your religion or your business.

Under the Obamacare law, businesses that have more than 50 employees must provide health insurance to their employees or face a penalty. To satisfy the mandate, the insurance must include the cost-sharing-free sterilization-contraception-abortifacient benefit. The regulation takes effect on Aug. 1, which means that as soon as any business starts a new plan-year for its health-insurance program after that date it will need to comply with Sebelius's rule.

The Catholic Church, to which the Newlands belong, teaches that sterilization, contraception and abortion are intrinsically immoral.

The Newland family has filed suit against the government, claiming that the requirement for sterilization coverage violates their religious beliefs, and that therefore they should not be required to pay for it. In response, the DOJ filed a brief basically telling the Newlands that if they want to keep their religion, they should get out of the HVAC business. According to the DOJ filing:

“Hercules Industries has ‘made no showing of a religious belief which requires that [it] engage in the [HVAC] business.”

See that? It's totally OK if your religion forbids you from providing certain services. Since it doesn't require you to operate a business, you can keep your religious convictions and abandon your livelihood. We are the State. We know what is best. Fall in line or suffer the consequences.

Make no mistake, this isn't about health care, it is about control. The government will claim it is championing the rights of the Newlands' employees, but what it won't say is that it is doing so through coercion, through the curtailment of someone else's rights, through the threat of force.

In today's America, you have no rights. The business you built isn't yours. Your moral convictions are fine, provided you don't live by them. Private ownership and property mean nothing if the government decides you must do something with them. In a country where the only freedom you have exists because the government just hasn't decided to limit it yet, there is no true freedom.

Religious or not, if you value any sort of freedom, then you are the Newland family. It may just be that the state hasn't gotten around to regulating what you value. Yet.

The Assault Weapons Ban's Expiration Has Not Led to ‘Open Season’

On Tuesday, Representative Hank Johnson (D-GA), claimed during a speech on the House floor that allowing the federal assault weapons ban to expire has led to an “open season” for gun crime, and that Congress needs to act now to reinstitute stricter federal gun controls.

Reflecting on the shooting last week in Aurora, CO, Johnson stated that “We have work to do in this congress. You see, the assault weapons ban in place for a number of years, of ten years actually, expired in 2004 and after the expiration of the assault weapons ban it’s been open season.”

The use of such an emotional appeal may be persuasive to some, but is Johnson’s claim accurate? A look at statistics compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation seems to suggest otherwise. The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports offers a comprehensive look at violent crime in the United States, and the numbers paint a very clear picture. During the period from 1994, when the Assault Weapons Ban went into effect, and 2004, when it expired, violent crime dropped dramatically: in 1994, there were 713.6 violent crimes committed per 100,000 residents; by 2004, that number had dropped to 463.2. But here’s the thing: after the ban expired, violent crime continued to drop; six years after the ban expired, in 2010, there were 403.6 violent crimes per 100,000 residents. In fact, in 2009 and 2010, violent crime dropped from the previous year at a rate faster than the four years leading up to the ban’s expiration.

There is also evidence that the decline started before the ban went into effect. Again according to FBI statistics, the violent crime rate in the U.S. was 758.2 violent crimes per 100,000 residents in 1991, and this number fell in the years preceding the ban. In direct contradiction to Johnson’s claim, there has been no increase in violent crime since the ban expired, and no evidence that the ban itself resulted in reduced violent crime, since the trend already seemed to be established when the ban took effect.

A simple explanation for the ban’s ineffectiveness in reducing violent crime is that very few assault weapons are used in crimes to begin with. In 1991, there were 9.79 homicides per 100,000 residents, only 1.29 of which involved the use of a firearm other than a handgun, a designation that includes weapons such as rifles and shotguns in addition to assault weapons. Since 1994, this number has persisted at around 1 per 100,000 residents, even following the expiration of the ban. The truth is that violent crimes very rarely involve an assault weapon, even when you can buy them freely from a sporting goods store.

Furthermore, tight gun controls do not ensure the elimination of gun violence. Mass murders on the same scale as the Aurora massacre took place in 2011 in Norway and 2010 in England, two countries with much stricter gun controls than the United States. The truth is that the massacre in Aurora was a horrific tragedy, but also a statistical anomaly. Violent crime has been on the decline for two decades, even in the face of the expiration of the Assault Weapons Ban and a general loosening of gun control laws across the nation. Rep. Johnson would have you believe that the loosening of gun control has made the United States a far more dangerous place, and only federal regulation can make you safe again, but the facts demonstrate the exact opposite. Americans today enjoy more firearms freedoms than they have in a century, but violent crime is on the decline. The only rational conclusion to be drawn is that Rep. Johnson, like so many other political leaders, is willing to ignore hard facts and exploit a tragedy in order to restrict individual liberty.

Even Our Legislators Don't Know What the Law Is

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D.-Ill.) voted for Obamacare, and has called it "one of [the] greatest achievements of our time and one of the proudest moments during my time in Congress." When House Republicans, assisted with a few Democrats, passed largely symbolic legislation calling for its repeal, Schakowsky released a statement condemning the repeal effort. So, with the high praise Schakowsky gives Obamacare, one would expect that she is familiar with its details.

One would be wrong. On Wednesday, a CNS News reporter asked Rep. Schakowsky about a provision which requires insurers to cover sterilization treatments for teenage girls. The response? “I don’t--I’m unaware that it says that sterilization including teens is in that. I’ll check that out.”

Now, Ms. Schakowsky's ignorance could be interpreted to mean that she didn't read the bill. At 2,000 pages, my guess is that she didn't. After all, her colleague and fellow Democrat John Conyers didn't; a fact that he seems quite proud of, even going so far as to ask why he would do such a thing.

However, the truth is far worse, because while her current ignorance is bad enough, the fact is that she couldn't have known about the provision when she voted for the bill, because the provision didn't exist. Such is the insidious nature of the current legislative environment, where it doesn't matter if bills are read, because the actual law is written by bureaucrats well after the law is passed. In truth, our federal legislators do very little actual legislating, instead, they write a bill authorizing an executive branch bureaucracy to write rules regarding a specific subject on their behalf. Obamacare was no different - it amounts to a 2,000 page guidance document authorizing Health and Human Services to draft tens of thousands of pages of regulations that will never be voted on, but will have all of the authority of the law. The particular provision forcing sterilization coverage was recommended by a committee of members of the Institute of Medicine, and then drafted into regulations written by HHS long after the bill was passed.

The dangerous nature of this system should be clear to everyone: what this type of system does is give legislative authority to bureaucrats who have no accountability to the public, and gives legislators the ability to deny responsibility for unpopular regulations. In both cases, the public loses.

Obamacare is horrific legislation, and it should be repealed. Far worse for the cause of individual liberty, however, is the practice of allowing bureaucrats to write the law. Only a return to the proper roles of government, where legislators make the laws and the executive branch enforces them, will allow freedom and  liberty to once again be at the forefront of the American way of life.

You Only Have a Gun Because You're A Scared Racist

It's not my intention for this to become an "all guns, all the time" blog, but with the recent events in Colorado, that's what people are talking about, and most of what is being said is stupid. The latest example of this comes courtesy of David Frum, writing for CNN.com. According to Frum, it is fear that motivates the push for gun rights:

TV news -- and especially local TV news -- is dominated by news of violent crime, the more spectacular and murderous the better. TV news creates a false picture of a country under attack by rampaging criminals, and especially nonwhite criminals. The people who watch the most TV news, Americans older than 50, also happen to be the group most likely to own a gun.

...The more terrifyingly criminal the world looks, the more ineffective law enforcement seems, the more Americans demand the right to deadly weapons with which to defend themselves. It is local TV programming directors, not the National Rifle Association, who are tirelessly persuading Americans that they need to strap a gun to their legs before heading to the mall.

Well, fear and, of course, racism:

Whites are twice as likely to own a gun as nonwhites -- and it may also not be a coincidence that gun purchases have suddenly spiked since November 2008.

See? Elect a black man president and all of the racist peckerwoods have to gear up. Frum also commits the "correlation=causation" fallacy I noted in my discussion of the Aurora shootings:

A gun in the house minimallydoubles the risk that a household member will kill himself or herself. (Some studies put the increase in suicide risk as high as 10 times.) An American is 50% more likely to be shot dead by his or her own hand than to be shot dead by a criminal assailant.

Frum sees gun ownership as causing suicide, which is stupid. It is far more likely that suicidal people purchase a gun as the method of ending their life; saying that a person who is otherwise mentally sound suddenly decides to end it all because they happen to have a gun lying around is just disingenuous, and a perfect example of the Cum Hoc Ergo Proper Hoc (With this, therefore because of this) fallacy.

There is also an implication throughout the article that guns are unnecessary, since violent crime is on the decline, particularly since the early 1990's. What happened in the early 1990's? Well, one thing is that many states enacted "shall-issue" concealed carry laws, resulting in many more armed citizens on the streets. Now, I don't want to commit the same fallacy that Frum does, but is it not at least possible that part of the drop in violent crime can be credited to a more armed populace? If this is the case, then saying guns are unnecessary because violent crime is on the decline is akin to saying that you don't need to watch what you eat because you aren't fat. There's also a sad irony in arguing for gun control as a solution to violent crime when you are simultaneously arguing that guns aren't necessary because there is no violent crime problem.

In Frum's fantasy world, gun control is the answer to violent crime, which isn't really a problem anyway. And if you disagree, you are a fearful, racist old white person who shouldn't have even gotten so old, because having a gun should have caused you to kill yourself a long time ago.

Aurora, Gun Control, and Never Letting a Crisis Go To Waste

As I wrote yesterday, the mass shooting Friday morning in Aurora, CO, is an event that will have very personal ramifications for the individuals involved and their families, the Aurora community, and to a lesser extent, the nation. In addition to the grieving and the attempts to resume as much of a normal life as possible, all those affected, and those of us who are merely observing the tragedy, find ourselves asking the question, "Why did this happen?"

Others, however, view this occurrence as an opportunity to once again restrict individual liberty. Ace links some of the responses from individuals such as Michael Bloomberg and Jesse Jackson, who are using this tragedy to call for yet more gun control.

But is gun control really the answer? Back in 2011, Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people in a combination bombing and shooting in Norway. Norway has very strict gun control laws; firearms are only allowed for hunting and range shooting, and purchasing a handgun requires completion of a 9-hour safety course, a written exam, and proof of ongoing membership in a shooting club.

Britain's gun control laws are even more severe: handgun ownership is forbidden, and long guns (rifles and shotguns) require a firearms license, a background check and a 'legitimate reason' for ownership. Furthermore, a firearms license can be revoked by the police at any time. Yet, in 2010, Derrick Bird killed a dozen people in a shooting rampage in Cumbria, England.

Here in the United States, one could look to the third and fourth largest cities for an excellent case study in gun control not working. Chicago, Illinois is the nation's third largest city, with a population of 2.7 million. In 2011, the city recorded 440 homicides, or 16 homicides for every 100,000 residents. Houston, Texas, is nearly the same size; the 2010 census puts its population at 2.45 million, making it the nation's fourth largest city. There were 195 homicides reported in Houston in 2011, or 9 per 100,000 residents. There are also significant differences in gun control in Illinois and Texas. Illinois is the only state in the U.S. that has no provisions for citizen concealed (or open) carry. That means that, unless you are a law enforcement official, you cannot carry a gun in public in the state of Illinois, which includes the city of Chicago. Texas, in contrast, is a shall-issue state, which means that anyone who is not prohibited by law from owning a handgun may get a license to carry it concealed (or open) in public. So, to recap: Chicago - high murder rate, zero legally-armed citizens in public. Houston - a murder rate almost half of Chicago's, despite a similar population and the legal right to carry a handgun in public. Now, it's important to avoid the correlation = causation fallacy, so I'll stop short of saying that gun-carrying citizens lower the crime rate, but what we can confidently say is that the right to own and carry a gun conclusively does not result in an increase in gun violence.

Furthermore, the city of Aurora already has stricter gun control laws than Colorado at-large. In fact, it was illegal for shooter James Holmes to be in possession of a firearm at the movie theater. And we all see how that worked out. As it turns out, people who commit murder tend not to be worried that the implement with which they murder is illegal. And, as Norway and Britain have shown, controls on gun ownership don't stop criminals from buying guns illegally. Also, as has been shown in England, in cases where guns do become more difficult to procure, people just resort to stabbing each other.

So, what does the Aurora massacre teach us about gun control? Well, nothing, really. The massacre in Aurora is not a justification for more gun control, because gun control doesn't work, and only results in law-abiding citizens who are unable to protect themselves from those who choose to speak in the language of violence. What this incident really teaches us is that there are evil people in this world who will hurt others - a lesson that most of us already knew. And it also teaches us that there are those who will always use a crisis to limit freedom, even if the facts don't add up.

No It Isn't, Dumbass

The events Friday morning in Auroro, CO, were a tragedy, one that has affected individuals, families, a community, a state, and a nation in a way that will never fully heal. I'll have more to say about the incident and its implications on the United States and public policy in a bit, but this statement by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is so irresponsible and so clearly wrong that it warrants a brief takedown:

“Expressing sympathy is nice ... but somebody’s got to do something about this,” Bloomberg said. “And this requires, particularly in a presidential year, the candidates for president of the United States to stand up and once and for all say, yes, they feel terrible. Yes, it’s a tragedy. Yes, we have great sympathy for the families, but it’s time for this country to do something. And that’s the job of the president of the United States.”

I'm going to make three brief points about this before my head explodes:

1. As I'll outline in a more well thought out and detailed post tomorrow, this incident has nothing to do with gun control. Aurora already has strict gun controls in place (more so than Colorado as a whole). In fact, it was illegal for gunman James Holmes to be in possession of firearms on theater property. In fact, looser gun control may have saved lives, since there may have been a law-abiding gun owner in the theater at the time.
2. The President does not make policy. This is the job of the legislature. The President's job is to enforce the laws, not make them.
3. According to the Second Amendment, Federal gun control is illegal. The fact that our government routinely ignores this fact doesn't make it any less true.

Gun-grabbers will use this tragedy to try what they always do: take guns from law-abiding citizens. Mayor Bloomberg has routinely shown that his biggest goal in life is infringing on individual liberty and acting like New York's overbearing mommy. Now he is trying to cynically use a tragedy to pressure other political leaders to do so.

Here's my response to Mayor Bloomberg: Go back to regulating soft drink sizes in your hellhole city, you authoritarian fuckwit, and leave the rest of us alone.

No, Ms. Pelosi, Selling Our Children Into Slavery Is An Immorality

In response to a question about Republican efforts to defund the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and Planned Parenthood today, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called such an effort an "immorality," and had the following to say beforehand:

“The defunding of Planned Parenthood, which is part of what their mark-up was about, was it yesterday that they officially marked up? Yesterday, that was, I know was in the mix, I didn’t know if they were finished with it, that mark up.”

She continued, “It would be interesting to see if they are even able to bring a Labor/HHS bill to the floor for the simple fact that that is a bill about jobs, it’s about education, it’s about our workforce, it’s about the health and well-being, the national -- funding of the National Institute of Health and all that that implies in terms of research about CDC [Center for Disease Control] and prevention. It’s about so many things that are central to the well-being of the American people.”

“And yet they’ve cut I think, about -- I haven’t seen the final product -- but about $6 billion from that bill in order to fund some of their other endeavors, all of this at the expense of the health, education and jobs for the American people,” said Pelosi.

Once again, Pelosi manages to demagogue, obfuscate, and commit one of the most basic of all rhetorical fallacies, the fallacy of the "false dilemma," all while promoting a spending philosophy that ensures the next generation is enslaved to debt.

Let's start with the debt problem first. The United States is worse than broke. We are currently more than $15,000,000,000,000.00 in debt, and this debt is growing at a rate of approximately $1,500,000,000,000.00 per year. There are currently no plans being proposed by Pelosi's party that will get the country deficit-neutral for at least 20 years. This means that people who are being born this year will be taxpayers by the time the nation makes any attempt to return to fiscal sanity and begins to actively attempt to repay the debt, at least if Pelosi and her ilk have their way. Therefore, we can safely say that every dollar the federal government spends is one that we expect some other generation to pay for. We are quite literally stealing from our children and grandchildren (and great-grandchildren), and consigning them to a lifetime of debt slavery. I'm sorry, Ms. Pelosi, but you are the one committing an "immorality."

Moving on to the false dilemma: what Pelosi is claiming is that failure to fund federal programs in the Labor and Health and Human Services departments will result in fewer jobs, poorer education, and worse health care for the American people. This dilemma can be summed up this way: either you support Labor and HHS programs, or you are against job creation, education, and health care. This is a false dilemma because there is no evidence that the two are connected. In fact, all historical evidence is to the contrary. The most prosperous periods in United States history are those marked by lassaiz-faire federal policy with regards to employment and economics. As I wrote yesterday, education in the United States has gotten worse since we began pumping federal money and providing federal oversight into the education system, and  the free-market health care system that the United States has used to have is was the envy of the world. Minimal government and free-market forces always work better than government oversight and central planning.

So, to recap: Nancy Pelosi wants to go down a road that will lead to financial ruin, she's willing to use faulty logic to sell the plan to you, and wants to sell your children into slavery to get there, but if you oppose her, you are the immoral one.

The "Second Bill of Rights" Guarantees a Life of Slavery

The AFL-CIO is now openly agitating for what amounts to a Marxist America:

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says his organization is pushing for a 'Second Bill of Rights" for the United States of America...

...Trumka and the AFL-CIO are calling for a new bill of rights that would guarantee "full employment," a "living wage," and a "healthy future."

Sounds good, right? Who wouldn't want a guaranteed job, a guaranteed minimum wage, and free health care? Just one problem, though: the world doesn't work that way. You cannot just pass a law that everyone has to have a job, unless you plan on paying people that "living wage" to dig a hole and then fill it up again. Oh, wait, turns out that IS part of the plan. The problem is, the money to pay for that make-work job has to come from somewhere productive, which is where the slavery part comes in.

It is impossible to guarantee a "right" to full employment, a living wage, and a healthy future in a free society, and here is why: guarantees of physical goods or services (job, wage, health services) requires forcing someone to provide them. It cannot work any other way; either government agents put a gun to someone's head and force them to hire people they don't need or want, or government agents put a gun to someone's head and force them to pay taxes to create make-work jobs that produce nothing of value, or government agents confiscate all private industry so that they can dole out the jobs according to their own views of "fairness." In any of the three cases, the individual becomes a slave to the state. The only way this works is if the government chooses who works where, does what, and earns a salary determined to be "fair." In other words, every citizen becomes a slave.

This method of guaranteeing a job, wage, and health care has been tried before: it is called communism. Communism, without fail, has led to abject misery and the reduction of human life to commodity status. Starvation, forced labor, death by beating; all of these are the end results of communism. And what Trumka is attempting to sell Americans is communism, plain and simple. It may be dressed up in fancy promises of "full employment" and a "living wage," but it is no different than what was sold to Russians early in the last century, and will end in exactly the same way.

Unsurprisingly, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz has signed on with Trumka to promote this abomination. Something tells me that both Trumka and Wasserman-Schultz plan on being in the ruling class of this little endeavor, not mere members of the Proletariat like you and me.

Make no mistake, the "Second Bill of Rights" marks Trumka, Wasserman-Schultz, and every other person who signs on as an enemy of America and all those who wish to live as free men and women.

The $1 Billion Math & Science Teacher Initiative

President Obama wants to dump $1 billion into a program to create a race of super-teachers in the math & science fields, with the claimed goal being to create more competent scientists and engineers:

The Obama administration announced Wednesday morning plans to develop a national science, technology, engineering and math teaching corps – pending a $1 billion commitment from Congress.

The STEM Master Teacher Corps, as it would be called formally, would start with selected 50 teachers and expand to 10,000 in four years, according to a statement from the White House. In exchange for modeling STEM education and mentoring their peers, those teachers would receive a $20,000 annual bonus.

"If America is going to compete for the jobs and industries of tomorrow, we need to make sure our children are getting the best education possible,” President Obama said in a statement.

Like most issues, Obama (along with all progressives), sees what is determined to be a problem (in this case a lack of qualified technical people in the United States), and proposes a three step program to fix it:

1. Create a government department, or expand one that already exists.
2. Dump money into said department.
3. Success!

And, according to Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan, no one could legitimately oppose this plan; any disagreement must be political in nature:

Education Secretary Arne Duncan said he hopes politics won’t interfere.

"This initiative has nothing to do with politics," Duncan said, according to The Associated Press. "It's absolutely in our country's best long-term economic interest to do a much better job in this area."

Here's the thing: this claim is a combination of both the "false dilemma" and "begging the question" fallacies. When committing the false dilemma fallacy, the person making the statement claims that either X or Y is true, and that they are mutually exclusive. In this case, Mr. Duncan is implying that either one supports increased education spending, or they have political motivations behind their failure to support the program. This, of course, is not a proper dilemma; one could easily say that they promote improving the educational system via vouchers and market competition, for example.

When one begs the question, they assume facts that are not in evidence. The other fallacy in Duncan's statement is the assumption that increased spending and federal control will necessarily lead to an improvement in math and science education. He isn't even putting this position up for debate, which it certainly should be. During the Carter Administration, the United States Department of Education was established, and all public education began to be tightly overseen by the federal government. What have the results been? According to Andrew J. Coulson in his book Market Education: The Unknown History:

Student achievement has stagnated or fallen in most subjects since 1970, with the largest and most thoroughly established decline occurring in basic literacy. That is the verdict of the five most reliable sources of evidence: the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), the International Evaluation of Education Achievement (IEA), the Young Adult Literacy Survey (YALS), the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS), and the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS). Together, these five groups of tests cover the gamut of ages from 9 to 25, and a full range of academic subjects.

The federal takeover of the public education system has not had a positive effect on the education of American children. In fact, it seems as though the opposite has been the case, despite the ever-increasing sums of money spent at the federal level. Mr. Duncan is begging a question that deserves a different answer.

What is that answer? As in most things, the best solution is most likely a combination of decentralization and the free market. The Department of Education should be abolished, allowing states and communities the opportunity to once again control their educational options. Putting control back in the hands of individuals, and taking it from the bureaucrats, is almost always the answer.

Is Supporting Gary Johnson a "Wasted Vote?"

I believe that the current political system is broken. Democrats are authoritarian socialists who will lead this nation into tyrannical misery, and Republicans seem determined to do the same thing, just more slowly. Neither of the two major parties in the United States are really seriously talking about reducing the size and scope of the national government; the best we seem to get now are promises to manage the beast better. Furthermore, a Supreme Court justice that was appointed by a member of the supposed party of small government just used tortured logic to provide a cover of legitimacy to one of the largest illegitimate expansions of federal power in the last 70 years. It is safe to say that, at least within the political establishment, the philosophy of Reagan is dead.

The very first post I wrote on this blog was about voting for the "lesser of two evils" and how I wasn't convinced that, given our current political system, such a thing was possible among the major parties. The last year hasn't changed my opinion; if anything, I am more convinced than ever that we simply cannot count on the status quo to solve the myriad issues which plague our nation. That's why the chances are high that my vote will go to Governor Gary Johnson come November. Johnson, the Libertarian candidate, is the only person without a (D) or (R) after his name who will be on the ballot in all 50 states in the election, and has proposed an agenda radically different from both Obama and Romney. According to an article in today's Miami Herald, some of those agenda items include:

• He’s the only candidate who will be on the ballot in all 50 states and Washington D.C. who shows no interest in bombing Iran.
• He’s the only candidate willing to violate the politicians’ version of don’t-ask-don’t-tell and say out loud what they all know, that the war on drugs is a useless waste of money.
• And he’s the only candidate promising to cut the federal budget — actually cut it, not just slow its growth — in his first year in office.

Not symbolically, either. He plans to cut $1.4 trillion in government spending. And it won’t be as hard as you think. Start with the Pentagon, where Johnson has already made a list of cuts that amount to 43 percent of the budget.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/07/16/2898206/gary-johnson-its-not-just-a-two.html#storylink=cpy

Additionally, as a two-term New Mexico governor, Johnson also has something that both Romney and Obama lack: executive governing experience with a record of success:

Though the state is overwhelmingly Democratic, Johnson won a solid victory with his platform of cutting taxes and reining in spending. And in spite of facing a legislature that was two-thirds Democratic, he delivered, vetoing 750 bills and thousands of line-item expenditures. He easily won reelection, and when he left office the state had a $1 billion budget surplus.
Jobs in New Mexico grew at a faster clip under Johnson than under any other former governor who ran for president this year — five times faster than they did in Massachusetts when Romney was governor.

And, unlike "me, me, me" Obama, Johnson knows where the real credit for New Mexico's success lies:

“I didn’t create a single job,” he says. “The private sector did that. But I did create an environment where the private sector could flourish. And that’s what I’ll do as president."

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/07/16/2898206/gary-johnson-its-not-just-a-two.html#storylink=cpy

Now, I'm not naive enough to think that a third-party candidate is likely to win; the two big boys, along with their media lapdogs, will do their best to ensure that doesn't happen. However, Johnson doesn't need to win in order to have an effect; in reality, all that he has to do is wound one (or both) of the major party candidates. As King Leonidas said in 300, knowing full well that in the end he faced certain death at the hands of his Persian foes:

"The world will know that free men stood against a tyrant, that few stood against many, and before this battle was over, even a god-king can bleed."

This November, my goal isn't necessarily to win the battle; instead, I'll be happy if all we succeed in doing is bloodying the god-kings from the establishment. Doing so will send a message, and if enough of us stand on principle and say "enough!" maybe, just maybe, our voices will be heard. And if we can accomplish that, then a vote for Johnson certainly isn't a wasted vote.

Romney/Rice 2012?

There has been quite a bit of buzz this week over the possibility that Mitt Romney will choose Condoleeza Rice as his running mate, and both the Romney and the Rice camps have denied it vehemently, which only adds fuel to the speculative fire. Political pundits love the idea of an out-of-left-field political happening, which is why Sarah Palin made such waves four years ago, before the media promptly turned her into nothing more than a running joke. 

CNN's Jack Cafferty argues today that such a pairing may be just what Mitt Romney needs:

Mitt Romney might have a shot at a game changer that actually works in his favor.

Speculation has been rampant for the last several days that former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice might be on Romney's short list for vice president.

Unlike Sarah Palin, who all but destroyed John McCain's chances, Rice might be just what the doctor ordered for Romney.

She's smart, has foreign policy credentials that are unquestioned and would certainly make the race a lot more interesting than it is now.

While Cafferty is correct that it would make the race more interesting, I think that it would be a disaster for Romney, and here is why:

• Rice was one of the chief architects of George W. Bush's foreign policy. This would open Romney up to comparisons with Bush that would hurt, not help, his campaign. As a New England governor who has no political record at the national level, his current distance from Bush is a good thing.
• Social conservatives will undoubtedly balk at her pro-choice and pro-civil union positions. A small-government proponent could very likely get away with these positions, even among social cons, but given that Rice is tied to the case study in big-government Republican administrations, these social positions are a loser.
• Among those who are paying attention (a small segment of the population, of course) choosing a black woman as a running mate will be seen as a cynical ploy. Cafferty tries to paint the 'black female' as a positive, but let's be honest: people who are focused on race and/or gender have already bought into the 'black=democrat/woman=democrat' lie that generations of progressive identity politics have cemented into the psyche of the uneducated and foolish. In 2008, women didn't break for McCain because he had a woman on the ticket; they broke for Obama because he had a (D) after his name. The Democrats could run the whitest, male-est ticket on the planet and they would still be painted as the appropriate choice of women and minorities. All this does is give cover to people who were already going to vote for Romney, by allowing them to say "Look, I voted for a black person, too!"

So, to sum up, Condoleeza Rice, though she is clearly intelligent, has all the negatives of her association with the Bush Administration, coupled with a number of positions at odds with the Republican establishment, and will almost certainly provide no benefit via the cynical race/gender identity gambit. I'm not seeing much of anyone on the potential VP lists that makes me want to put up a "Romney '12" sign in my front yard, but this would be a bad idea.

Lack of Self Awareness - Level 9000

During an interview Friday, President Obama told WJLA that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney needs to answer questions regarding his tenure at Bain Capital, and that as CEO, he needs to take ownership of whatever happened there under his leadership:

“My understanding is that Mr. Romney attested to the SEC, multiple times, that he was the chairman, CEO and president of Bain Capital and I think most Americans figure if you are the chairman, CEO and president of a company that you are responsible for what that company does,”

Just to make sure everyone understands, when you are in charge, you are responsible for what happens. That is the standard that President Obama is setting. So, is Obama on the hook for:

• Record deficits? Nope, that's Bush's fault. 
• The terrible state of the economy? No, that's also Bush's fault (at least Obama had the guts to say it to his face).
• The GSA lavishly wasting taxpayer dollars on a conference in Las Vegas? Again, no, it's Bush's fault.
• The loss of individual Americans' private wealth during Obama's tenure as President? Nope, that one is all on Bush as well.

The United States is in a shambles. The trouble started under the Bush administration, but President Obama has managed to do nothing but make it much worse, much faster. Yet none of it is his fault. I mean, come on, he's trying really hard people, can't you just appreciate his efforts on your behalf? It's not his fault that George Bush somehow keeps managing to screw things up, more than three years after his presidency ended.

Obama may have spent the last three years perfecting the "he did it" routine, but that's not the only way in which he and his campaign have shown an amazing lack of self-awareness recently. Just a few days ago, Obama claimed that Romney doesn't have the requisite experience to be President. That's right, a community organizer with a lackluster eight-year stint as a state legislator and a partial term in the U.S. Senate during which he barely participated is criticizing someone else's qualifications.


The projection issue is getting so out of hand, I won't be surprised if next week Obama claims Romney was born in Kenya and is therefore ineligible for the Presidency.

Coherent Worldviews and Secular Hypocricy

I've written before on the illegitimacy of requiring religious individuals to keep their politics and religion separate. This is of course impossible; a coherent worldview combines views on religion, politics, society, morality, ethics, economics, and so forth. And, the more in-depth one's worldview, the more intertwined those beliefs become.

I, for example, believe in an omnipotent, personal Creator. Additionally, I am a follower of Jesus of Nazareth. I believe in his life, death, and resurrection, and that he is the second person of the Trinity, and therefore God Himself. Because this belief is the cornerstone of my worldview, everything else is covered by this view, including my political beliefs and behaviors. It is less a case of "My view on policy is X because my religion says so," and more "I believe that this particular viewpoint corresponds to the reality that God created."

For example, I believe that free markets are objectively superior to controlled or centrally planned economies. I believe that this is borne out in reality, meaning that free markets will always outperform controlled economies because it is fundamental to nature itself. And when I say fundamental to nature itself, the implication is that they are morally superior, because the objective superiority means that they correspond to God's moral will. It is foolish to believe that if there is a God, that he has no viewpoint with regards to economics. And since God is the ultimate creator, his viewpoint will always correspond with reality, and following that viewpoint will always result in the greater good. This is no different than any other policy issue, be it bioethics, abortion, health services, environmental policy, etc. A sincere belief in God will necessarily entail trying to understand how that God views a particular issue, because following God's view (usually described as His moral will), will result in choosing the path that is objectively better. Bear in mind also that where a religious individual consciously concludes that a religious requirement should not be legislated (I, for example, believe that prostitution is immoral, but am not convinced that anti-prostitution laws are beneficial), it is still a consideration weighed within the worldview context. Now, different individuals may ponder these questions and come to different results, but to require that they not ask the question at all, and instead request that they attempt to divorce themselves from what they view as reality itself, is simply not possible. Also, bear in mind that this is not simply a religious problem - atheists and the non-religious go through the same worldview-colored analysis when they take policy positions, because they are doing so under the assumptions of their own particular worldview.


Of course, all people intuitively know this. What this requirement really is, is a blatant attempt to shut an individual down by excluding even the questioning of policy from the political realm. It's really nothing more than a dirty trick used by political hacks to try and win an argument that they can't win on the merits by fiat.


Yesterday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi attempted this dirty trick when she told a reporter for CNS news, in response to a question regarding a mandate for insurers to provide sterilization coverage, "Let's go to church and talk about our religion." The implication here is that the reporter was asking a religious question, and therefore it belonged in church, and not in the arena of public policy. Interestingly, the reporter didn't attempt to phrase the question in religious terms, which shows yet another danger of this tactic: all someone has to do to shut down discourse is claim that the topic is religious, and it's not up for political debate, even when the objection is not raised in religious terms.


It's all just a show anyway, though, and a look at Pelosi's own positions on issues demonstrates it as such. Back in 2010, in another speech, Pelosi claimed that she always considers what Jesus would think about her policy positions:

"...we have to give voice to what that means in terms of public policy that would be in keeping with the values of the Word."

The "Word" in question is Jesus, who is referred to as the "Word" in John 1:14. So, my question for Pelosi is simple: Should we allow religious convictions to influence our public policy positions or not? In 2010, Pelosi obviously believed the answer was yes. Now, in 2012, not so much. So, was she wrong then, or now? The real answer is neither. Her real position is to use Jesus and religion as a political tool when it's politically expedient, but then deny such use to others when it isn't. And in so doing, she has exposed far more about her own corrupt worldview than she would probably like.

Leveling the Playing Field

Nobel Prize-winning economist Freidrich Hayek once wrote that "There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal." The truth of this statement and the implications of the two philosophies (equality of treatment vs. forced equality of outcome) are far-reaching and have a profound effect on the world in which we live.

Traditionally, the idea that people should be treated equally has found its home in classical liberal and libertarian political philosophy, but truly finds its roots in classical Christendom. Of the world's religions, Christianity alone posits that all humans are equally flawed, equally subject to sin, and yet equally loved by their Creator. Jesus of Nazereth, the founder of Christianity, is recorded as routinely keeping company with members of society who were shunned by the upper-class and religious leaders (prostitutes, tax collectors, fishermen, lepers, etc.), and preached a message that all humans were uniformly worthy of damnation, but could also uniformly appeal to God's grace for salvation. It should come as no surprise, then, that the political worldviews of classical liberalism and libertarianism developed as a product of the Western culture, which is itself a product of the Christian worldview. These political views take the Christian tradition of human equality and extend it to the realm of government, stating that, while we may not agree with or condone a certain person's activities, we value freedom and liberty, and we will be tolerant, except and to the extent that such activities infringe on another's right to do the same. Libertarianism, of course, is morally neutral, where Christianity is certainly not, but the idea that it is improper for one man to rule over others is certainly at home in a Christian worldview. Furthermore, to the extent that this worldview has been applied, wealth and human flourishing have invariably followed. This of course should come as no surprise to those who believe that it corresponds, at least nominally, to the will of the Creator.

The opposing worldview, the one that attempts to make people equal, on the other hand, has universally led to human suffering. The chief problem with such social and economic engineering projects always boils down to the fact that any attempt to make people equal necessitates inequality. That is to say that central planning always requires central planners, who, by the nature of their job description, are rulers over the masses. Given mankind's evil nature, the power that comes with such a position is inevitably abused and perverted. Such projects in human improvement and "equality" have given us such horrors as the Soviet gulags and the Great Leap Forward, along with the petty tyrannies so common to modern American life. Unfortunately, no matter how confident you are that you can manage your own existence, there always seems to be someone else out there who is sure they can do it better. As Captain Malcolm Reynolds says to his crew in Serenity, after discovering an entire world dead at the hands of their intellectual and political betters: "Sure as I know anything, I know this - they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that."

In the news yesterday is just one more example of this arrogant, foolish, and dangerous thinking. The Competitive Enterprise Institute reports that our federal masters may soon be using Title IX to impose quotas on science and engineering programs in universities:

Obama hinted that Title IX quotas would soon come to engineering and techology, saying that “Title IX isn’t just about sports,” but also about “inequality in math and science education” and “a much broader range of fields, including engineering and technology. I’ve said that women will shape the destiny of this country, and I mean it.”

Putting aside for a moment the clearly sexist statement (why should "women" shape the destiny of this country? Shouldn't "Americans" shape their own destiny?), what is being stated here is that federal money, regulations, and enforcement will all be focused on leveling the ratio of men to women in math, science, and engineering. The outcome, of course, won't be that more women are in these fields; instead it will just mean that there are fewer men:

Christina Hoff Sommers wrote earlier about this looming liberal war on science. Based on a campaign promise Obama made to feminist groups in October 2008, Sommers foresaw the Obama Administration moving to artificially cap male enrollment in math and science classes to achieve gender proportionality — the way that Title IX currently caps male participation in intercollegiate athletics. The result could be a substantial reduction in the number of scientists graduating from America’s colleges and universities.

The reason for this should be obvious: the reason that there aren't currently more women in these fields of study is that women, in general, don't want to be in these fields of study. While there are a few notable exceptions, women tend to prefer other career paths. This isn't to say that women aren't capable of being scientists or engineers; they just choose not to be. And really, isn't women's choice the highest moral good in today's America? In reality, short of the government literally forcing some women into these programs, the only way to lower the disparity is to keep men out, which, just as has happened in athletic programs across the country, will clearly be the outcome. The result will be no notable increase in female engineers, just a notable decrease in male engineers, and, therefore, a decrease in engineers period. And, given the increasingly technical world in which we live, isn't that, I don't know, a bad thing?

In the end, such attempts to force social outcomes are authoritarian, foolish, damaging, and ultimately doomed to fail. It's akin to, when finding out that there is an amputee in the PE class, using the woodshop equipment to "equalize outcome" by cutting a leg off of everyone else. It doesn't make the amputee perform any better, but isn't it just so much nicer when things are fair?

A Tale of Two Economies

Let's take a look at two possible economic situations, shall we?

Situation #1:

A man and wife, let's call them Mr. and Mrs. Smith, after years of hard work and saving, decide to start a business. Because they have done their homework and know the market they are entering, and because they are dedicated to providing their customers with excellent service at a fair price, they are wildly successful. So successful, in fact, that they end up hiring hourly employees to work for them, and a manager to keep up with the day-to-day operations. The hourly employees are mostly college kids who use their wages to pay for books, gas, and nights out with friends, which in turn allows the bookstores, gas stations, restaurants and bars to stay in business, in turn employing yet more college kids and young adults. The manager is a man with a wife and two kids. He uses his salary to pay for his mortgage, his car payments, and family activities. In turn, the bank to which he makes house and car payments gets to employ tellers and loan officers, the auto manufacturer gets to employ engineers and line workers, and the theme park employs mechanics to tend the rides, managers to oversee operations, and yet more college kids to dress up like anthropomorphic animals.

As Mr. & Mrs. Smith watch their business grow, they decide to expand into neighboring states, and eventually they have operations across the country. In all 15 cities in which the business operates, the situation is the same: college kids and managers who work for a wage or salary, and in turn use their earnings helping other businesses do the same. Furthermore, with all of the added business, Mr. & Mrs. Smith now have established a corporate office with an accounting department to handle the finances, a human resources department to oversee their employees' needs, and a senior management staff to handle day-to-day operations.

At this point, the Smiths have become fairly wealthy, and, because they like to visit their different business locations, as well as do some travelling, they decide to invest in a luxury item: they purchase a small private jet, which they use on a regular basis. The money they spent on the jet went to an aircraft manufacturer, which used it to hire engineers, technicians, line workers, and management. In order to use the jet, they have to hire a pilot and co-pilot, pay airport fees, and purchase jet fuel. In each city they visit, be it for business or pleasure, they rent a nice car and stay in expensive hotels. The auto rental company employs a single mother at the counter and another family man to detail and prep the cars for rental. Each of the hotels employs desk attendants, maids, facility engineers, room service staff, and food preparers.

All together, the Smiths are directly responsible for the employment of nearly five hundred people, and, along with others like them, are indirectly responsible for the employment of thousands.

Situation #2:

The Smiths take longer to get their investment put together, since much of their income goes to taxes. However, they are eventually successful in starting their business. They work hard to provide a product that the public wants at a fair price. They are successful, and are rewarded by paying one of the highest corporate tax burdens in the civilized world. They eventually are able to hire a few college kids to work, but Mr. Smith must manage the day-to-day operations, because he just can't afford to hire someone to do it for him. Mrs. Smith contributes by keeping the business' books.

Most of the money from the taxes the Smiths pay goes to hire bureaucrats and inspectors. The bureaucrats get to work drafting a slew of regulations about who Mr. Smith can and can't hire, how many hours they can work, what the employees can and can't do on the job, what kind of health insurance Mr. Smith must provide, how much water the toilets in the employee rest room use, and the proper setting for the thermostat in the office, along with others too numerous to name. The rest of the tax money goes to an NEA grant for an artist that defecates on a symbol of the Smiths' religion in public as 'performance art.' Unable to keep up with the slew of regulations on his own, Mr. Smith must lay off one of his employees so that he can pay a firm to help him with regulatory compliance. Unsurprisingly, the firm uses some of the retainer money on a lobbyist who pressures Washington to produce yet more regulations.

In the midst of Mr. Smith's woes, the President goes on national television to berate business owners for not doing their part to combat unemployment. He implies that people who aren't hiring are doing it as a personal insult to him. As a matter of fact, the President uses the words "I" or "me" nearly a hundred times in a ten-minute address.

A few weeks later, a federal agent shows up at the Smith's business to conduct an inspection. Despite Mr. Smith's diligent efforts to comply with the thousands of regulations that apply to his business, the inspector finds a half-dozen paperwork violations. Mr. Smith is given a $25,000 citation. With no way to pay, the Smiths close their business, lay off the remaining staff, and liquidate the company assets.

The President goes on television the next day and claims that the economy is recovering, but there is a desperate need for more government workers.

Mr. Smith finally lands a job at a massive corporation with close ties to several Congressmen. It is at a lower salary than he had before he started his business, and the job does not approach his qualifications, but it manages to cover most of the bills. That new car will have to wait, though. Mrs. Smith isn't so lucky, and spends the next two years struggling to find work.

Since tax revenues are down for reasons no one in Washington can explain, the President urges Congress to borrow money from the Chinese to fund the desperately needed positions in various bureaucracies.

According to our current President, Situation #2 is the only solution to our economic woes, and Situation #1 will lead to economic ruin. The stupidity would be sad, if it wasn't so infuriating.

Can A Referee Make a Bad Call?

I'm going to admit something: I don't follow sports. I don't spend Sunday afternoon on the couch watching the football game, I'm only ever vaguely aware when the World Series is being played, and I'm not even really all that sure what the "Final Four" refers to. I live within an hour drive of both Duke and UNC Chapel Hill, and even here, where college basketball is taken as seriously as religion, I don't have a clue. It's just not my bag. I consider myself athletic; after all, two of my favorite activities are Krav Maga and SCUBA diving, but I just can't develop a taste for dedicated (or even casual) sport fandom.

One thing I do know, however, is that every sports fan has an innate belief that a referee can be wrong (usually when the call benefits the other side). This is actually an important point, because what we are saying when we acknowledge that a referee can blow a call is that the referee's job is to compare the activity on the field to some objective standard of play, and then determine if the play meets the requirements of the standard. We are taking this interpretation of the referee's duty over the other possible reasoning - that the referee actually causes the play to be legitimate or not based on their decision. In the former interpretation, the referee can certainly make a bad call; in the latter, such a case is not possible, since it is the referee's ruling which determines what the rules are. Even a most basic reflection on this situation makes it clear that it's the first case which corresponds to reality.

In a very real sense, the United States Supreme Court is supposed to act as the referee for the Congress and the President, and the Constitution is the rule book. The Supreme Court's job is to look at the actions of the other two branches and see if they align with the intended meaning of the Constitution. Therefore, if we accept that a referee in a sporting match can blow a call, there is really no reason not to conclude that the same can be the case with the Supreme Court. It should be self-evident that it is not the Court which decides what the law is; it is their job to determine what the Constitution says the law is, and they are bound to rule on the constitutionality of legislation and government activity, regardless of personal political views.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, however, does not seem to get this. In an interview this past Thursday, Romney stated that the Supreme Court decides what the law is:

Romney said both Obamacare and Romneycare should now be considered constitutional.

"The Supreme Court has the final word, and their final word is that Obamacare is a tax. So it's a tax. They decided it was constitutional, so it's a tax and it's constitutional. That's the final word. That's what it is," Romney said.

It may just be awkward wording on Romney's part, but his implication is that since the Court decided that the legislation was constitutional, it became constitutional. This is very different from the role of impartial arbiter that the Court is supposed to fulfill, and the fact that the presidential candidate from what is supposed to be the party of intentionalist, limited government is conceding the idea that the court gets to actually create the meaning of laws is troubling, to say the least.


Just like in football, the referees of our political system can be wrong. In the case of Obamacare, they were wrong, and to concede this point is to give up the game completely.

We Hold These Truths to be Self Evident

One of the most profound political documents ever drafted:

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

• He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
• He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
• He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
• He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
• He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
• He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
• He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
• He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
• He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
• He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
• He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
• He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
• He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
• For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
• For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
• For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
• For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
• For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
• For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
• For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
• For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
• For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
• He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
• He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
• He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
• He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
• He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

May we once more find the strength and opportunity to live as free. 


Happy Independence Day! 

Supremacy and the Purpose of Federalism

During the course of the debate over Obamacare, a number of references have been made to the so-called "Supremacy Clause" in the Constitution. The way this clause has frequently been presented in the media, and how I learned it in school, is that laws made by the federal government are supreme to those made by the states. The states are then free to make laws that are stricter than those at the national level, or to make laws affecting things that are not legislated at the national level, but once Congress acts, its legislation takes precedent. Very rarely in modern times do we hear arguments from states about the Constitutionality of a law; instead those arguments come from individual citizens who believe that the national government has overstepped its bounds with regards to its relationship to the individual.

Such, however, is not the case. The Supremacy Clause is found in article VI, and reads in total (emphasis added):

"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."

In the clause itself we see its rather narrow limitations - it is only laws made by the national government  directly pursuant to its Constitutionally-enumerated powers which are supreme. Additionally, since there was some concern about the national government overstepping its bounds, we were given the Tenth Amendment, which further clarifies the situation:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

This statement makes it explicitly clear that, where the national government does not have direct, enumerated power, that the authority that is, in fact, supreme, is that of the individual state. This is how the federal system is supposed to be organized: a loose central government that manages foreign affairs and provides for common trade and defense, with individual sovereign states having the authority to manage themselves. When the Constitution was written, the federal system was envisioned as one in which the central and state governments would have separate spheres of influence, and neither would be subservient to the other.

The proper federal system is important for a number of reasons, all of which would make this a better union in which to live, were we to adhere to it. First, the original powers delegated to the national government primarily dealt with foreign affairs and the standardization of money and measures between the states. Nearly everything else (meaning those things that concern the average citizen on a day-to-day basis, were at the discretion of the state. Control at the state level increases the influence that an individual has, meaning that the average citizen would exert more control over his or her elected representatives. For example, my home state of North Carolina has 120 districts and a population of just under 9.7 million, meaning that each state representative represents approximately 82,000 citizens. In contrast, the U.S. House of Representatives has 435 members, and with a U.S. population of 311.6 million, each representative supposedly represents 716,000 citizens. While a constituency of 82,000 is bad enough, to believe that any member of Congress can actually properly represent nearly three-quarters of a million people is laughable.

Second, with states handling their own internal affairs, it stands to reason that there would be states with laws that appealed to vastly different political mindsets. Imagine, the freedom for California to be a liberal utopia without forcing Nebraska down its socialist path. Or for New Hampshire to be a beacon of libertarianism while allowing Alabama to be as socially conservative as it desires. With a centrally-managed nation of 311 million, such a thing is not possible, but with 50 individual sovereign states, it is reasonable to conclude that more Americans could have political and cultural surroundings that they found agreeable. It's not about forcing everyone to get along, but about allowing individuals the freedom to do what they want.

Finally, following Article VI and the Tenth Amendment would be the legal thing to do. While this does not have the pragmatic benefits of the two other points, a proper respect for the rule of law does foster a political landscape that provides less opportunity for those in power to screw over the electorate. So there's that.

Put together, these three points represent the benefit of the federal system: increased autonomy and political influence, freedom to self-govern, and severe limitations on those in power. That is how the United States was envisioned by its founders, and how it should be run today.