Taxes for thee but not for me

David Axelrod was on Fox News Sunday this past weekend and was asked about President Obama's taxes which were released this past week. I found the exchange over the Obamas' taxes very interesting and telling:

(CHRIS) WALLACE: It turns out that he [President Obama] paid a tax rate of 20.5 percent, which is a lot less than the 30 percent he talks about and yes, it is lower than what his secretary pays.

AXELROD: It is.

WALLACE: And the president has -- if I may, David, the question I have for you is: if the president feels so strongly about tax fairness, is he going to he contribute money to the Treasury and they have a special department just for this, to help with the deficit?

AXELROD: Listen, Chris, first of all, the reason that his tax rate was so low was in part because 22 percent of his income was donated to charity, mostly to these Fisher Houses around veteran hospitals. So --

At this point Wallace interrupted Axelrod to point out that Mitt Romney also contributes to charity. Axelrod agreed and then began to point out the differences between President Obama's tax proposal/plan and Governor Romney's. Wallace eventually returned to the original question:

WALLACE: I take it that he's [President Obama] not going to contribute money to the Treasury to help with the deficit.

AXELROD: Listen, well, that's not the way we operate our tax system, OK? We don't run bake sales. It's not about volunteerism. We all kick in according to the system. And the system allows that -- look, the fact that Mitt Romney pays 14 percent on $20 million income is not the issue. The issue is that the system permits it and he would perpetuate that and he would enhance it.

On the one hand, let me say, "good on Obama". If, as libertarians, we believe that taxes are theft, then we ought to commend any attempt to avoid paying them just as we would any defense against other criminal actions. On the other hand, it seems disingenuous of the president to call for the rich (millionaires, specifically) to pay 30% or more of their income in taxes while conspicuously failing to do so himself because the "system" allows it. Perhaps, it would have been wise for Mr. Axelrod to raise the point that the Obamas did not earn over a million dollars last year, and therefore, would not be subject to the president's proposal(s). But he didn't. In fact, he went on to defend the president's use of the system to lower his tax rate -- he's just following the rules. Nevermind that those rules permit him to contribute more.

There are a number of points raised by this story, all of which deserve a post of their own, but I don't have the time or energy to delve into each so deeply. Here they are, briefly and in no particular order:

• Taxes are not voluntary and are collected at the end of a government gun.
  
  Axelrod admits as much when he says [emphasis mine], "that's not the way we operate our tax system, OK? We don't run bake sales. It's not about volunteerism. We all kick in according to the system." The only issue I take with his description is the use of the phrase "kick in". Stop enforcing tax laws; only then can we truly know how "voluntary" taxes really are.


• No person should ever pay more than the "system" requires, the criminality of the system itself, notwithstanding.
  
  Obama's actions and Axelrod's defense of them (see the quote under the previous point) bear this out.


• It's hypocritical to call out Mitt Romney for paying "only" 15% of his income in taxes.
  
  Governor Romney lives under the same tax system that President Obama does. Why is it okay for Obama to "kick in according the system" while Romney is vilified for doing exactly the same thing?


• President Obama, himself, doesn't believe in his own tax proposal(s).
  
  As the Fox News story points out, Obama paid less in taxes, percentage-wise, than did his secretary. If he believes that a system in which this kind of "inequity" is allowed is "unfair", why wait for the system to change? Nothing is preventing him from correcting this particular injustice right now. Thus, we can infer that correcting this problem is less important to him than keeping his own money.


• Why are taxes proportional to income but not other things, too?
  
  If taxes are what we pay for government goods and services, why don't rich people pay more for everyday goods and services like groceries and carwashes?


• War is a racket.
  
  I note that the overwhelming majority of the Obamas' donations went to the Fisher House Foundation. It's been funny (interesting, not ha-ha) for me to see people on the political right who hate Obama with a passion turn around and lavish praise on him for donating money to this organization. Their love of war and support of those who fight it seemingly knows no bounds.
  
  The politics obscures the absurdity of it all. Why does the government pay for war and the private sector pay for cleaning up the messes left by it?
  

Who's still standing?

This morning I was reading a story on the Volokh Conspiracy about how a judge in Georgia has allowed a lawsuit challenging Obama's listing on that state's presidential election ballot. A sentence in the middle of the article caught my attention:

Similar challenges have generally been rejected on procedural grounds, such as on the grounds that plaintiffs lack standing to sue because they have no greater stake in the matter than any other citizen. Generally speaking, federal courts have concluded that in such cases where the plaintiff doesn’t have a particularized stake in the matter, the resolution even of constitutional controversies should be left to the political process and not to courts.

This reminded me of the Kucinich lawsuit against Obama claiming the latter's violation of the War Powers Act in sending forces to Libya in early 2011. This lawsuit was dismissed for a similar reason -- lack of standing:

Judge Walton held the members of Congress lacked standing to bring the challenge, as they had ample legislative means at their disposal to oppose the President’s use of military force.

I haven't read the decision in this case, but I suspect that the judge's decision rested, at least partially, on the "political question" doctrine. This is the idea that the judicial branch should "avoid inserting itself into conflicts between branches of the federal government" and that "some questions [are] best resolved through the political process". This strikes me as incorrect, as it should be justiciable as to whether or not the president's actions were in accordance with the War Powers Act (or whether that act is itself constitutional). But I digress.

The point is that if the government breaks the law (in a general enough way), it would seem that no one has standing to challenge that action. Say the executive branch eavesdrops on everyone's communications, in clear violation of the fourth amendment, and that this is readily provable and a potential court case is not subject to being tossed under the state secrets doctrine. It seems that the case would still be tossed under the theory that everyone is equally harmed/oppressed, so none have standing to challenge. Furthermore, Congess is powerless here (via the courts) for the same reason Kucinich was unable to stop Obama's action in Libya: Congress has "ample legislative means at their disposal to oppose the President", namely defunding and impeachment.

But defunding and impeachment are themselves political, not judicial actions. They require the votes of members that (may) have an interest in the outcome of these actions that is not necessarily aligned with upholding the constitution or the laws or even the interests of justice. The entire idea underlying the court system is that it is comprised of impartial, disinterested officials. (Whether or not this is true in practice is a separate matter.) The executive and legislative branches are explicitly not comprised of such people. If the court is unwilling to get involved, then we must resign ourselves to the idea that the law is whatever the majority of the Congress says it is (or fails to say that it isn't).

While this may be comforting to some, in that these officers are (in theory) the "people" themselves, democracy is no panacea:

But what kind of person runs for public office? Madison failed to foresee that even the so-called "separation of powers" could not restrain men forever. Entry into politics does not require any particular skill or morality. It simply requires some combination of money, connections, personality, and a desire to rule others, particularly the last one. In fact, that last reason is probably the main reason that anyone runs for office. The idea that the world would be a better place if was in charge is probably not foreign to anyone. To succeed in government, however, involves backroom deals and "compromises" ensuring that only the least moral and most willing to deal away their principles will rise to the top. Thus, government will ultimately be populated with the worst people in society, and it is only a matter of time before they decide to work together to turn their legal authority to use force on the people themselves.

It would seem that we are inexorably on a path to this end in which we will be ruled by the oligarchs in office and their benefactors or by the "people" both of which, in practice, believe that positive law is superior to and therefore trumps natural law. No matter which prevails, one thing is certain: it's not going to be pleasant.

How quickly we forget

I received an email containing a number of complaints about the current administration. On the theory that, in reality, this administration is no different from the last, or any other for that matter, I present the following.

If any other of our presidents had doubled the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved?

When Clinton left office, the federal debt stood at 5.8 trillion. Bush increased this to 10.4 trillion by the time he left office. The current federal debt as of the government's last fiscal year stood at 11.9 trillion. Bush doubled the debt, not Obama.

If any other of our presidents had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved?

In Bush's last year in office, the federal government spent 3.1 trillion dollars. The federal government spent 3.09 trillion in the last fiscal year on record, a 2.4% decrease from Bush's last year.

One also has to remember that Bush refused to make the wars part of his budget and continually funded them through emergency funding measures. So, any claims that Bush was going to balance the budget are without merit.

If any other of our presidents had criticized a state law that he admitted he never even read, would you think that he is just an ignorant hot head?

"As a governor, he did not appreciate the federal government stepping in, telling states what to do," Fleischer said. 

Later, he amended his comments: "The president believes that all policies, state or federal, need to respect the culture of life. He differs with Gov. Davis on this."

If any other of our presidents joined the country of Mexico and sued a state in the United States to force that state to continue to allow illegal immigration, would you question his patriotism and wonder who's side he was on?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,341316,00.html

If any other of our presidents had pronounced the Marine Corps like Marine Corpse, would you think him an idiot?

http://www.ehow.com/how_2272065_mispronounce-words-like-george-bush.html

If any other of our presidents had put 87,000 workers out of work by arbitrarily placing a moratorium on offshore oil drilling on companies that have one of the best safety records of any industry because one foreign company had an accident, would you have agreed?

http://articles.latimes.com/1990-09-18/news/mn-596_1_offshore-drilling 

http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2010/07/24/bush-pelosi-and-reid-deserve-scorn-for-destroying-jobs-for-teenagers/ 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/04/01/us-usa-economy-employment-idUSTRE5303F820090401

If any other of our presidents had used a forged document as the basis of the moratorium that would render 87000 American workers unemployed would you support him?

http://articles.cnn.com/2003-03-14/us/sprj.irq.documents_1_weapons-inspectors-documents-nuclear-weapons?_s=PM:US

If any other of our presidents had been the first President to need a Teleprompter instaled to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes?

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/weird/jorj-booshs-fo-ne-tik-promt/story-e6frev20-1111114505516 

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/world/blundering-bush-winks-at-queen/story-e6frev00-1111113491771

If any other of our presidents had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take his First Lady to a play in NYC, would you have approved?

http://www.politicususa.com/en/obama-bush-vacation 

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-06-01-air-force-one_x.htm

If any other of our presidents had reduced your retirement plan holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved?

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1208/16740.html

If any other of our presidents had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/mar/26/usa.iraq

If any other of our presidents had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved?

If any other of our presidents had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought it a proud moment for America?

Is this what it's come to? Gift giving? Fine.

If any other of our presidents had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia would you have approved?

http://www.google.com/search?q=bush+bows+to+saudi+king

If any other of our presidents had visited Austria and made reference to the nonexistent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip?

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/bush-slips-up-at-apec-on-opec/story-e6frev8r-1111114365415

If any other of our presidents had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved?

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2006/04/28/5088/rove-legal-trouble-more-extensive/ 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Miers#Supreme_Court_nomination_and_withdrawal 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Brown#Resignation_from_FEMA

If any other of our presidents had stated that there were 57 states in the United States, wouldn't you have had second thoughts about his capabilities?

http://quietmumblings.blogspot.com/2006/08/bushisms-bush-and-geography.html

If any other of our presidents had flown all the way to Denmark to make a five minute speech about how the Olympics would benefit him walking out his front door in his home town, would you not have thought he was a self-important, conceited, egotistical jerk.

http://andyfinn.us/bush_league/bushisms20_bush_bravado.htm

If any other of our presidents had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, wouldn't you have winced in embarrassment?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/bush-takes-stab-at-speaking-spanish-with-mixed-results-673744.html 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcHlXNFpr-s

If any other of our presidents had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite?

http://whateveritisimagainstit.blogspot.com/2006/04/george-w-bushs-earth-day.html

If any other of our presidents' administrations had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/20/tom-ridge-i-was-pressured_n_264127.html

If any other of our presidents had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans, would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11627394/ns/us_news-katrina_the_long_road_back/t/video-shows-bush-got-explicit-katrina-warning/ 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11255379/ns/us_news-katrina_the_long_road_back/t/brown-blames-homeland-katrina-response/

If any other of our presidents had created the position of 32 Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America, would you have ever approved.

http://www.google.com/search?q=bush+bypasses+congress

If any other of our presidents had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/oct/14/us-banks-bailout-bush 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/19/bush-administrations-holi_n_152292.html

So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive?

Nothing. He's exactly the same as every other politician.

That triple-A credit rating

Despite a debt deal, the US federal government still faces a downgrade of its credit rating. In my opinion, rating the creditworthiness of a government is all political theater. However, during the course of discussion, I've noticed a curious argument being made with regard to the possible downgrade:

Behind all too many of market moves in government debt of late has been a report from one of the major credit ratings agencies. S&P is the biggest and arguably the most influential, fast followed by Moody's Investor Service and then their smaller rival, Fitch Ratings. In national capitals, they are alternately vilified by politicians or held out as just arbiters for denouncing government profligacy. 

Yet there is an overwhelming irony in their new-found prominence. These are the same firms that many blame as prime instigators of the 2007-2008 credit crisis for freely giving out top ratings to ultimately worthless structured mortgage products, allowing the credit bubble to form. Now they sit in judgment of the countries that had to ruin their public balance sheets to prevent financial collapse by saving the banks shattered by those bad instruments once blessed by the agencies. 

"The ratings agencies failed the world economy in spades in the past," said Lord Peter Levene, chairman of the Lloyd's of London insurance market and a former senior adviser to the British finance ministry. 

"Their track record has not exactly been stellar."

The argument seems to be that because the ratings agencies all "missed" the financial collapse in rating junk financial instruments as AAA, then their credibility in this matter is nil. I don't follow this line of reasoning for a couple of reasons:

1. The main issue that people seem to have with the credit rating agencies is that they waited too long to warn the investing public about the looming financial catastrophe that struck in 2007-2008 and issue downgrades. Shouldn't those people now be applauding these same agencies for trying to correct their failures by getting out ahead of possible new problems?
   
2. If credit rating agencies tend to overrate financial instruments, an assumption that seems to underlie the argument, then shouldn't people take it very seriously when an agency actually does issue a downgrade?

You can't have it both ways. You can't simultaneously decry the agencies for missing the financial collapse in 2007-2008 and then point at that incompetence as a criticism for downgrading a financial instrument that everyone agrees is in trouble.

Against the PATRIOT Act but for it's provisions

I've been out of town for the past few days, but I read that the House passed the PATRIOT Act extensions I wrote about last week. This morning, I read that the Senate passed them as well. I didn't set out to pick on the "Tea Party", but I thought it would be interesting to look at the final vote in the House just to bring closure to my postings about the issue. Not a single member mentioned in my previous post, changed his/her vote. It turns out, it wasn't very interesting.

Most of the responses I received to my previous posts were from people in districts whose members had voted for the extension of the PATRIOT Act provisions. They told me that they were disappointed in their congressperson's vote or that their congressperson was never really a member of the Tea Party movement but simply rode the Tea Party wave of outrage into office by being less bad than the "other guy". I did receive one email, though, from a gentleman defending his congressman's "yea" vote. I found this particular email especially distressing because the signature line in the email identified the writer as the Chairman of the Tea Party in his county. I have not asked permission from the gentleman to reprint his email, but in summary, he claimed that I misrepresented what the bill was about in the house and forwarded me a note written by his congressman, Jeff Duncan (R, SC-3), and posted to Facebook. Here was my response:

I don't feel that I misrepresented it at all. The first sentence of the article reads "The House of Representatives failed to extend the PATRIOT Act provisions that I wrote about a few days ago." The words "PATRIOT Act provisions" linked to this page containing the article I wrote a few days ago which was also published on lewrockwell.com. In it, I described the three provisions at issue as well as linked from that article to the ACLU's website which contains a fuller description. Both articles linked to news stories detailing exactly what was happening, what was being voted on, and how. With all of that information, the "uninformed reader" would be willfully so.

If anything, Mr. Duncan is misrepresenting things. How can he simultaneously say that he will vote against the PATRIOT Act while voting for its provisions. As to the specific provisions, I urge you to read what the ACLU has to say about the provisions at issue and square that against Mr. Duncan's rosy picture of what the government is doing.

Mr. Duncan also says that he favors congressional oversight of the use of the provisions in the PATRIOT Act. Aside from the fact that congressional oversight is simply an opportunity for congressmembers to grandstand and almost never, if ever, results in any kind of punishment for or reform of abuses, this bill contains NO provisions for oversight of any kind.

This bill would simply have extended the provisions in question until December, period. Congress performed the same stunt -- extending the provisions -- last year in order to facilitate a fuller debate about the merits of the provisions at issue, failed to have that debate, and now wants to extend it again. Given actions like Mr. Duncan's -- saying he's against the PATRIOT Act and favors congressional oversight while voting for the PATRIOT Act without said oversight -- I see no reason to believe that the act won't simply be extended again and again until the political willpower exists to extend it permanently.

Another emailed because she was unsure exactly where I stood on the PATRIOT Act. Here was my response to her:

I think the whole thing ought to be scrapped (along with the people who wrote and voted for it).

--

On a related note, I thought this article on Mises Daily was really good today.

How did (tea party) patriots act?

The House of Representatives failed to extend the PATRIOT Act provisions that I wrote about a few days ago. This is good news, but the fight is not over.

The Patriot Act was moved to the floor under suspension of the rules — a provision that requires two-thirds majority (290 votes) to pass and is often used for noncontroversial legislation. After holding the vote open well past the 15-minute window, it failed 277 to 148 with five Republicans and four Democrats not voting.

Republican leaders will bring the bill back to the floor under a rule, where it will almost certainly secure the 218-vote threshold.

[...]

Twenty-six Republicans voted against the Patriot Act extension, but only eight were freshmen — Reps. Justin Amash (Mich.), Mike Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Chris Gibson (N.Y.), Randy Hultgren (Ill.), Raul Labrador (Idaho), Bobby Schilling (Ill.), Dave Schweikert (Ariz.) and Rob Woodall (Ga.).

Of those eight freshmen, it appears that all were Tea Party-supported candidates. It's encouraging to see these officials stick to their professed ideals. I hope that this is a continuing phenomenon. According to this article at MSNBC, though, at least forty house seats went to Tea Party-backed candidates. Cross-referencing the list at MSNBC and the outcome of the vote, the following is a list of Tea Party-backed candidates voting for the bill:

Tim Griffin (AR-2), Paul Gosar (AZ-1), Steve Southerland (FL-2), Allen West (FL-22), Sandy Adams (FL-24), Bob Dold (IL-10), Adam Kinzinger (IL-11), Marlin Stutzman (IN-3), Todd Young (IN-9), Jeff Landry (LA-3), Dan Benishek (MI-1), Tim Walberg (MI-7), Michelle Bachmann (MN-6), Vicky Hartzler (MO-4), Renee Ellmers (NC-2), Frank Guinta (NH-1), Joe Heck (NV-3), Michael Grimm (NY-13), Steven Chabot (OH-1), Bill Johnson (OH-6), Steve Stivers (OH-15), Jim Renacci (OH-16), Tim Scott (SC-1), Jeff Duncan (SC-3), Trey Gowdy (SC-4), Mick Mulvaney (SC-5), Scott DesJarlais (TN-4), Bill Flores (TX-17), H. Morgan Griffith (VA-9), Sean Duffy (WI-7), Reid Ribble (WI-8), David McKinley (WV-1)

That's thirty-one out of forty voting for the bill (77.5%), eight voting against, and one no-vote. Despite the eight nay votes, Tea Party-backed candidates overwhelmingly supported an extension of the PATRIOT Act. That's not good for anybody.

How will (tea party) patriots act?

Here's another story that isn't getting a lot of attention. Sections of the PATRIOT Act are up for renewal this month. A renewal was introduced in the senate at the end of January by Patrick Leahy (D-VT) to extend this unconstitutional legislation. Last week, James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) introduced a renewal to much the same effect, proving once again that statism is endemic to both parties.

A quick summary of the provisions at issue from the ACLU:

• Section 215: of the Patriot Act authorizes the government to obtain "any tangible thing" relevant to a terrorism investigation, even if there is no showing that the "thing" pertains to suspected terrorists or terrorist activities
• Section 206: of the Patriot Act, also known as "roving John Doe wiretap" provision, permits the government to obtain intelligence surveillance orders that identify neither the person nor the facility to be tapped.
• Section 6001: of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, or the so-called "Lone Wolf" provision, permits secret intelligence surveillance of non-US persons who are not affiliated with a foreign organization.

Where is the outrage at this sweeping government power? Where are the news stories warning us that the 4th amendment, among others, no longer has any teeth? Where are the Tea Party activists who screamed so loudly for a smaller federal government, the abolition of Big Brother, and the restoration of our rights, not to mention our dignities? There are some who are fighting the good fight, even if in words only:

[...] Laura Boatright, a tea-party organizer in Ontario, Calif., says the act is "unconstitutional," adding, "We can have national security in other ways, without making all the American people relinquish their liberty."

I'm suspicious of Ms. Boatright's "other ways", but acknowledgment of the PATRIOT Act as unconstitutional is a plus in my book. The Tea Party doesn't appear to be immune to statism and the lure of big government, though:

Ryan Hecker, a Houston lawyer and tea-party organizer, says he believes the act has helped curb terrorism and "the movement should remain agnostic."

Right. Agnostic. Nothing to see here; things are fine just the way they are. How did this guy get involved with a group of people that supposedly adores the constitution and limited government? Oh, that's right. They all simply want power and control, and trotting out the idea of the big, bad terrorists will keep the people in fear and, more importantly, maintain their acquiescence. The Republicans have certainly wasted no time in peddling that fear:

"The intelligence and law enforcement communities that are responsible for preventing terrorist attacks need to know that the tools they rely on to keep the American people safe will not be weakened or allowed to expire," said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R., Texas).

And with that, we should all be prepared for the Tea Party to betray its constituents and all citizens after going the way of every other politician: seduced by power, greed, and the desire for re-election to perpetuate those aims.

A House bill would extend the law without change through Dec. 8. Republican aides say such a move is the most likely outcome to give lawmakers more time to debate the issue.

No matter, though, the executive branch is prepared to carry on even without congressional approval:

Attorney General Eric Holder has said the Obama administration [...] plans to put many of the safeguards in place even without passage of the law.

"Tone down the rhetoric"

This is a topic that I really didn't want to weigh in on, but I keep reading about it, and I'm having a hard time not responding to others who have written on it. First, some background: in case you've been living under a rock for the past few days, you've likely heard about Jared Loughner. In response to his shooting spree, much has been written about Mr. Loughner's politics, the politics that may have lead to his actions, and the politics to come.

As to Mr. Loughner's politics, I don't care. In the immediate aftermath of his actions, much was made of his anti-government stance. For many this seemed to place him firmly on the radical right side of the political spectrum. Shortly thereafter, an old friend (acquaintance?) of Mr. Loughner's began tweeting that Mr. Loughner was "quite liberal". And neither side can distance itself from him fast enough. Let's keep our eye on the ball here, though. The shooter is now in custody; he ought to be given a trial and, if convicted, made to answer for his crime(s). The end.

But that's not the end, and we can't keep our eye on the ball. Instead, we're being told to "tone down the rhetoric". Clarence Drupnik, the sheriff of Pima county, where the shooting occurred, has been making news because of comments he made after the shooting, mainly this one:

When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous.

I've seen it pointed out that there is nothing inherently political about this statement, and in a vacuum, I would agree. Unfortunately, we don't live in a vacuum, so let's call a spade, a spade. Mr. Drupnik is referring to those on the political right and those who oppose (big) government. (Note that those are two distinctly separate groups.) Based on his statement, Mr. Drupnik thinks that those groups are responsible for Mr. Loughner's actions. Writing for the Wall Street Journal, John Fund thinks that Mr. Drupnik, himself, bears some responsibility for Mr. Loughner's actions. You know who's really responsible for Mr. Loughner's actions? That's right; it's Mr. Loughner.

Unfortunately, though, we're all about to be reminded that our liberty is in the hands of the worst members of our society: those who commit these atrocities or those who pass laws in response to them, take your pick. In its all too predictable knee-jerk reactionary way, congress is already proposing a slew of new laws to "keep this from happening again". Congressman Robert Brady (D-PA) is proposing that the ban against threatening the president be extended to all federal officials (presumably congressmen, judges, etc.) Congressman Pete King (R-NY) is proposing that guns not be allowed within 1000 feet of "powerful federal officials". (Right, the guy who was willing to ignore the law against murder is suddenly going to respect this law. Good thinking, congressman. I'm reminded of the wisdom of Jerry Seinfeld, or at least his writers, here, "You can make all the laws you want, he's still gonna bother people.") What's good for the goose is apparently not good for the gander, and the gulf between what's acceptable for those in power and those who aren't grows ever wider. Isn't anyone disturbed by the fact that federal officials deserve "more" equal protection under the law than the rest of us mere "people"?

Toning down the rhetoric isn't about restoring civilized debate; it's about stifling dissent. It's about chipping away at rights (supposedly) protected by the 1st, 2nd, and 4th amendments. It's about making abundantly clear exactly who rules over whom. Don't misunderstand; I am unequivocally not supporting threats of or actual violence. However, there are already laws against such things. Passing new ones like those described here are about separating the "rulers" from the "people" so that the people can be better controlled.

"Saving" capitalism

[I wrote the following in response to a friend who posted this article on his Facebook page. I apologize for the lack of annotated links in this post.]

The article starts by blaming Bush for a declining market. That's not really fair. Obama is doing exactly what Bush was doing when he left office (stimulus/bailouts). That is, if Bush had been President for two more years, the economy would likely be in the exact same place it is today. 9/11, coupled with the bursting tech bubble, is what originally sank the economy. Greenspan then held interest rates down, and the Dow Jones was back up to around 14,000 in late 2007. (How's that for one-sided reporting on the author's part... only pointing to the Dow at 8,500 on Bush's last day.) Greenspan's plan backfired, though. The low interest rates created a bubble in the housing market leading to all kinds of crazy gimmicks on the banks' parts. These fell apart in late 2007, and the market tanked again.

In response, the government began bailing out banks, the auto industry, anyone who could get get their hands into the proverbial cookie jar. Bush and Obama both did it, and it was a bad idea both times. Neither of them "saved" capitalism. The problem is that neither of them (or anyone in the government) has the backbone to let capitalism do its job. Capitalism means failure for those who can't compete and for those who do it fraudulently. The bailed out auto companies fall into the first category; the banks and insurance companies subsidizing their schemes fall into the second. Of course GM and Chrysler are making cars again! The government gave them the money to do it, and the government did it because it was politically better to try to save jobs (or at least that was the thinking at the time). Nothing about that investment other than the perceived political upside was a good thing at the time. To argue now that the fact that the government made (or possibly will make) money means the investment was a good one is to argue that the ends justify the means. That is the last argument anyone should apply to the state in any of its dealings.

The problem with the economy now is that Bernanke is making the same mistake(s) that Greenspan made. He's holding interest rates down at zero. (Remember the housing bubble? Why does no one see that Bernanke's cure is actually more of the poison?) Bernanke's got huge problem, though. The low interest rates aren't working. Banks are hoarding the cash because they still have more toxic assets on their books. What's his solution? He's turned on the printing presses and is using the new money to buy U.S. Treasuries in the hopes of bringing down long term interest rates. He claims he can do this because inflation is tame. That's because banks are hording the cash he's printing. Gold is continuing to rise in price, though; the market knows what is going on. Look also at other commodities like cotton, oil, etc. They're fairly stable now, but that's because producers hedge their bets by buying futures. Come Spring/Summer of next year, prices of those items are going to skyrocket (the same effect could probably be achieved by banks finally beginning to lend again all at once), and Bernanke won't be able to stop it. He can't raise interest rates like Volcker did, because unemployment is already high. (Volcker had the luxury of being able to drive unemployment up with interest rates so he could tame inflation.) The other alternative is that China stops buying up U.S. Treasuries (it's already making noises about doing that very thing) or the entire market just loses faith in the entire system (i.e. the government's ability or intention to repay its debt). When, not if, one of those things happens, the economy is going to collapse, not just tank. Think hyperinflation like in Chile in the 70's.

Yes, it would have been bad if the government had not intervened in the economy, but the government's "saving" of capitalism makes each attempt by the market to flush out the bad stuff even worse than the previous one because it (the government) won't actually let the bad stuff be flushed out. The government isn't saving capitalism. It is destroying it by making everyone think that what we have is capitalism.

[Here are some other witticisms that I sprinkled later on in the thread.]

In response to a comment that Democrats lost the midterms because Obama/they failed to get the message out:

Getting the message out is not leadership. It's politics. And we don't need either.

And in response to a comment that Americans "got it right" in this most recent election:

Americans never get it right in any election. The government keeps getting elected.

News roundup

I haven't posted much this week, but I've been saving a number of news stories throughout the week that I found interesting. Without further ado, here they are:

Fear of Government

Reason posts excerpts from a couple of authors about this chart. One says that not everybody is afraid of the government as the general feeling seems to be; it's only Republicans. The other argues that Democrats are equally susceptible to this fear when their party is out of power. I didn't find this chart so interesting, as what it shows is fairly obvious. What it did for me though, was highlight exactly how blind (read: partisan) Democrats and Republicans are when their party is in power. If one could take a step back and see the forest for the trees, as it were, one would find that the government acts pretty much the same way no matter which party is in power. They just focus their attention slightly differently.

Flag Burning

Talk about statist. The flag deserves respect? It's an inanimate object, for crying out loud. Justice Stevens thinks that the "U.S. flag and the symbol of liberty it represents" are too important to allow it to be burned in protest. Alright, you bring back the liberty, and I won't burn the flag.

We suck... less!

Pajamas Media explains why the Republicans are going to make big gains in the midterm elections. The story's byline says it all.

Because in the Democratic land of epic, mega, ultra, apocalyptic levels of sucking, those who kinda suck are king.

TSA scanners

The TSA was in the news quite a bit this week after an airline pilot last week decided to stand up to a TSA officer and refuse a pat down after refusing to allow them to look at his naked body with their AIT scanners. The first link there is to a CNN story which talks about how the TSA is planning to institute full body pat downs across the country. The woman who wrote the article was reduced to tears after being groped, and she is a regular traveler.

The second link is to a story written by a woman who thinks that the best way to fight for our civil rights (with respect to illegal searches by the TSA) is to begin writing letters to corporations whose businesses will be hurt if people refuse to be groped and stop flying, altogether. At first, I didn't think this approach had any merit, but after seeing the TSA steel their resolve in the face of that pilot standing up to them, I think the corporations who control the government might be our only chance.

Economic destruction

I have written a little bit about inflation and hyperinflation. Well, this article says that it (hyperinflation) is already taking hold and will be in full swing by spring of next year. The author makes a pretty compelling argument. I'm of the mind that collapse of the U.S. currency and economy are a matter of when, not if, and I suspect sooner rather than later. I don't know if it's going to happen as the author suggests, but I'm also not going to argue that it's not.

Just... hold on a second

I came across a number of weird/wacky news stories this morning, and since I didn't really feel like writing very much, I was going to just post a few links with some commentary to accompany them. Then a friend of mine posted a link to an opinion piece entitled "Just Stop" over on the Mesa Democratic Club's website. Well, I loves me some politics, so I went over to read it. The article started out well enough (read: I agreed with it), but then it lost me. Since this friend of mine and I have agreed not to discuss politics over our social network of choice, I decided to write this post.

The article starts out pointing out that Sarah Palin is not a "political outsider", that the Tea Party is not an independent group, and that John McCain no longer has any discernible political positions outside of whatever it takes to get elected. These are all excellent points with which I could not agree more. It's at this point that our respective positions diverge.

Stop pretending that the deficit we’re all facing is the fault of President Obama and the Democratic Congress. During the Bush administration, we went from a surplus to a massive deficit, largely thanks to two wars that were never (until Obama) added to the federal budget—wars, in other words, fought entirely on credit. We compounded the problem with tax cuts that largely benefited the wealthy, and a huge Medicare increase, and all those were also on credit. When the economy tanked in fall 2008, Bush quickly pushed through the TARP bailout, adding to the deficit (but pulling the economy back from the cliff).

President Obama is not entirely responsible for the deficit. He is quickly adding to it, though. Yes, Obama added the wars to the federal budget, but that does not change the fact that they (along with the much of the rest of the budget) are still paid for on credit. And while Bush may have pulled the economy back from the cliff, he did not change it's direction; it is still headed that way under Obama.

Stop pretending that the near-ruinous economic crash that we’re still reeling from was Obama’s fault, too. The root causes stretch back decades, to a continued process of deregulating financial institutions, allowing them ever more leeway to prey on the vulnerable, to sell mortgages to people who couldn’t afford them, and to manipulate financial products that were ultimately guaranteed to fall apart.

And stop pretending that Obama and the current Congress should have been able to fix the two above problems in 18 months, when it took eight years to create the first one and literally decades of foxes guarding financial henhouses to create the second.

Again, the author is correct that the economic crash was not caused by Obama, and that it is unrealistic to think that the government would be able to fix it (I would argue, in any amount of time). The author implicitly places the blame on the private sector, however, when he talks about mortgages and financial products. Those mortgages that people couldn't afford were promoted and backed by the government in the form of Fannie and Freddie and FHA and VA loans. Obama has continued this process with the homebuyer tax credit and the HAFA and HAMP programs. For non-mortgage related financial instruments, look no further than the Federal Reserve serving as the "lender of last resort". Even though the Fed is nominally a private entity, it's ludicrous to think that they really are, and when banks get into trouble, the Fed bails them out via the power of "printing" money, a power that Congress abdicated to it long ago.

Stop pretending that saying “No” is the same as governing. We pay our legislators good money to go to Washington and make difficult decisions that keep the country moving. By voting “No” on every bill, by refusing to negotiate in good faith, by deciding that short-term political advantage was more important than the everyday lives of Americans, the Republicans set back our recovery, made needed reforms fall short, and put our lives and our economy at unnecessary risk.

I hate the idea that governing means "doing something". Saying "no" is a legitimate act, one in which all politicians engage because nobody can agree on the exact role of government. In this way, saying "no" is doing something. That is not to say that Republicans are not being obstructionist for political gains; however, the author would be better advised to point out Republican hypocrisy on things like expanding Medicare under Bush but railing against the PPACA, now.

Stop pretending that the economy is magic. You can’t continue to give millionaires and billionaires huge tax cuts, make tiny, cosmetic cuts at the margins of things, and still reduce the deficit. You can’t create jobs without spending money. Tax cuts for millionaires and up are not stimulative because those people don’t spend the money from the cut—it’s not like you’re giving them a wad of cash and sending them to the store. When you put an unemployed person to work or give a tax cut to a poor or middle class family, that’s exactly what it’s like—they go buy things they need and those dollars flow through the economy, creating jobs and wealth everywhere they go.

I'm not sure anyone is pretending that the economy is magic; however it is far more complex than most imagine. Not only that, but the government via regulation or the Fed often arbitrarily moves the market in ways that could only be predicted by magic. The author is correct that tax cuts (to anyone) won't balance the budget. He is mistaken, though, if he thinks that tax increases will do the job, either. Federal spending is out of control, and the only way to save this country's economy, over the long term, is to start cutting Social Security, Medicare, the military, everything.

And stop talking about stimulus. It's too bad that people believe that Keynesian economics preaches deficit spending. Keynes, mistaken as I believe his theories to be, spoke of stimulative spending out of savings. Yes, it takes money to create jobs, but it also takes money to keep those jobs. To think that the government (or anyone) can throw a one-time bucket of cash at the economy to "unstick" it is ridiculous. It will only lead to the government having to throw ever increasing amounts of money at the economy. It's amazing to me that most people agree that easy credit was the proximate cause of the economic conditions in which we all now live and at the same time believe that if the government just borrows more from China that that will fix the problem. We will end up back in this very situation again, only it will be much, much worse.

The things that Pelosi and Reid have supported these past 18 months have been programs that will help America move into the 21st century. Health care reform, in spite of great efforts at pretending, is not a “government takeover” of health care—it institutionalizes, in law, the presence of the health insurance industry, and gives that industry millions of new clients.

Whoa! Stop right there! Did you catch that? The government, under Democratic control, via the coercion of law, just delivered millions of customers to the health insurance industry. It's not just the Republicans that are in bed with big business.

It will, in the long run, reduce the deficit and create a healthier nation, by allowing more people to get preventive care and long-term care and keeping the sick and impoverished from turning to emergency rooms when there’s a crisis.

This entire problem was created by the government in the first place, though.

Stop pretending that “lifelong politician” is some kind of curse. Most people who hold public office do so because they genuinely want to help people, they genuinely want to make government responsive to the needs of their fellow Americans, and they’re willing to put themselves on the line every few years to get the chance to do so.

Here's a thought experiment: If "most" people who hold public office genuinely want to help people and make government better, why hasn't it happened?

Stop pretending that “big government” is the problem. When’s the last time you were seriously inconvenienced or injured by something that big government did?

Gay rights, TSA body scanners, highway checkpoints, the PATRIOT Act, warrantless wiretaps, extra-judicial assassinations, indefinite detentions, inflation, etc. Don't tell me that (some of) these don't affect me. When one person's rights are trampled, everybody's are, and that's just at the federal level. Not only that, but all of this ignores the fact that every year I have to fill out a number of forms figuring out, on the government's behalf, how much money they want from me, and then send them that amount under the threat of force if I either figure wrong or don't send the right amount.

Stop pretending that anybody’s going to come and take your guns away. [...] There’s no truth to it, there’s never been any truth to it, and if you actually believe it, you just might be so simple-minded that you shouldn’t be trusted with a firearm.

They may not be trying to take them away, per se, but the laws (at least in CA) are clearly not conducive to gun purchases or ownership. One must wait 10 days to purchase any gun, even if one already owns one or one hundred of them. AB962, once in effect, will make the mail-ordering of handgun ammunition illegal and require fingerprints be taken of law-abiding citizens when they do purchase ammunition. It is illegal to actually carry one's gun in a manner that would actually allow it to be used effectively in self-defense, and many counties around the state deny CCW applications to all but the wealthy and connected.

Perhaps the author can explain to me why the BATFE and the state of CA keep records of gun sales if not to retain the possibility of rounding up guns in the future. I realize that that has a bit of a "tin foil hat" sound to it, but it is a legitimate question.

The author goes off the rails at this point with a lot of name calling. He tries to bring it home at the end, though.

Finally, stop pretending that voting doesn’t matter, and don’t let the 2010 Class of Crazy take office and convince you otherwise.

A variation on the previous thought experiment I proposed is apropos here: If voting mattered, why is government the way that it is? Perhaps it's because we've gotten the very government for which we voted. Voting doesn't matter and arguably does more harm than good. A voter is statistically more likely to be killed going to or coming from his/her polling place than to cast the deciding vote in an election. I refer the reader my previous posts on voting and the nature of government.

The first amendment says what?

I usually try to stay away from the low hanging fruit of the day in and day out political machinations and mud slinging that make up the U.S. electoral system, but I just can't resist Christine O'Donnell's appearance in a radio debate yesterday against her opponent Chris Coons. Here is a video of the event so that you can see for yourself. The fun starts around the 5 minute mark.

There is a lot of talk about the fact that the Constitution does not actually contain the phrase "separation of church and state" and that that is the point that Ms. O'Donnell was making. The fact that that phrase is not in the Constitution is not in dispute by anyone who can read. However, it is clear to me that the idea is embodied within the first amendment despite the absence of the phrase. I think Ms. O'Donnell either had some prepared talking points related to the separation of church and state and she used them at an inopportune time (i.e. the debate didn't correctly line up with what it is she wanted or had prepared to say) or she truly doesn't believe that the government and religion should be separate. The Wall Street Journal blog, linked above, addresses that debate, and I'd rather stay out of it.

I am more interested in a blog entry over on LewRockwell.com about Ms. O'Donnell's remarks. In it, the author derides the "left" for their mocking of Ms. O'Donnel's position saying that the "gaffe" label is applied when someone tells an "unwelcome truth". He then continues:

"Where in the Constitution is separation of church and state?,"  O’Donnell asks. The answer? It ain’t there. The First Amendment, passed after the Constitution was adopted by a Congress elected under that ratified Constitution, reads, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

The author goes on to note that many religions were "established" in the several states around the time of the Constitution's adoption and that even John Jay supported a New York law prohibiting Catholics from holding office. "In no way does the Constitution or the Bill of Rights establish a 'wall of separation' between church and state," he writes.

The amendment

Are we reading the same words? Let me start by saying that I am not a Constitutional scholar. With that out of the way, I'm willing to concede that the first part of the amendment, quoted above, means that Congress is forbidden from establishing a national religion and not necessarily from passing a law or laws that comport with a particular religious view or views. The second part seems pretty self explanatory to me, and that is that Congress may not pass a law that interferes with a person's practice of their religion, in any way.

So Congress can pass a law (subject to the rest of the Constitution, obviously) that follows or arises from a particular religious view so long as that law does not establish a "national" religion nor interfere with the free exercise of any other religion. The reason I wanted to go down this road is to show that the separation (as contained in the first amendment) is not explicit, but the idea that the federal government cannot impose religion on anyone nor prevent religious freedom is clear.

For the sake of clarity, I would go so far as to say that the federal government is not explicitly barred from supporting a religion (monetarily or otherwise) so long as it does not do so to the exclusion of others. That said, I think that government support of any religion is an extremely unwise policy.

State infringement

I'm not going to do any research into the author's claims about the several states establishing or prohibiting religions. The reason is that the Constitution of the United States did not, at the time, prevent them from doing so. The Constitution, as adopted, only restrained the federal government. The several states were free to violate the people's "rights" as defined by the first 10 amendments to the Constitution to their hearts' content.

It was not until the adoption of the 14th amendment, specifically section 1, in 1868 that this changed. Technically, that isn't even true, as the protections afforded by the 14th amendment (as viewed by most legal scholars) was gutted by the Slaughterhouse cases (this view is in dispute) in 1873. It is only via incorporation that individual amendments to the Constitution have been applied against the states. (The 2nd amendment was just applied this year!) The fact that the states, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, were interfering with religion has no bearing on whether or not a separation existed at the federal level.

Men are not angels

For those who didn't pick up on the title of this post, it is a reference to a post from last week entitled "If Men Were Angels". That post's title and most of its content were shamelessly lifted from an article of the same name which itself gets the phrase from James Madison's writing in Federalist No. 51. The same day on which that article was posted, news of an excerpt from a book by former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Clinton and then Bush, General Hugh Shelton, hit the Interwebs. This news was unfortunately buried by virtue of its coming out on a Friday.

In the book, the general relates a story of a conversation he had with a Clinton cabinet member during one of their weekly breakfasts.

At one of my very first breakfasts, while Berger and Cohen were engaged in a sidebar discussion down at one end of the table and Tenet and Richardson were preoccupied in another, one of the Cabinet members present leaned over to me and said, "Hugh, I know I shouldn’t even be asking you this, but what we really need in order to go in and take out Saddam is a precipitous event — something that would make us look good in the eyes of the world. Could you have one of our U-2s fly low enough — and slow enough — so as to guarantee that Saddam could shoot it down?"

The general doesn't explicitly say with whom he was speaking at the time, but the general consensus seems to be that it was the same person who gave this interview.

I was actually really surprised to hear of someone as far back as the Clinton administration suggesting something like allowing one of our own to be shot down in order to provoke war. To be honest, this is something I would have expected to hear come out of the Bush/Cheney White House. Not only was this person willing to purposely send one of our own to die, but he/she was willing to do so to enable the killing of probably tens, if not hundreds, of thousands more. It really is regrettable that stories like this don't get more play. I think it is imperative that people understand that this is what the State is capable of. Even if one is unwilling to accept the premise that such behavior is commonplace or routine and instead believes that false flag operations are the things of spy novels, it should be a very sobering thought that people at the highest levels of government are even capable of suggesting such a thing out loud and with a straight face.

Let's give credit where credit is due, though.

The hair on the back of my neck bristled, my teeth clenched, and my fists tightened. I was so mad I was about to explode. I looked across the table, thinking about the pilot in the U-2 and responded, "Of course we can ..." which prompted a big smile on the official’s face.

"You can?" was the excited reply.

"Why, of course we can," I countered. "Just as soon as we get your ass qualified to fly it, I will have it flown just as low and slow as you want to go."

Brav-o! The military, in some circles, gets a bad rap for being a bunch of warmongers and killers, and I don't know much about this particular general's career, but for this show of cojones, he earns a gold star in my book. I am in constant fear, though, that over time people like this will disappear or lose their sway within government. This quote, attributed to Edmund Burke, looms large:

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

Follow the money, part 1

I mentioned to my dad recently that money is the best way to determine what people really believe; he kind of chuckled at the notion. I made the same point again the other day when I posted a link to a story about Carl Paladino renting space to Planned Parenthood in spite of his anti-abortion political platform. The same could also be said of Al Gore's recently purchased ocean view property in Monticello, CA. If he believes the oceans are going to rise due to global warming, why would he live on the coast? Then again, maybe "believe" is the wrong word. Perhaps money is better at determining priorities. Maybe Al Gore really does believe that the oceans are going to rise, but it's probably a ways off and he'd really like to live by the beach until then. Maybe Mr. Paladino really does believe that abortion is murder, but he likes profit just a little bit more.

The concept certainly isn't new. Consider the phrases "put your money where your mouth is", "talk is cheap", "actions speak louder than words", etc. Note that the first two idioms make a direct reference to money. The latter refers to "actions" which take time to implement, and time is often equated with money. That's a kind of a stretch, though, so I'll generalize that people will make an "investment" in the things that they care about. Investment does not even necessarily have to refer to time or money. Rather investment, in this context, simply means the use of something valuable to further, reach, or effect an end.

My point in all of this is this: A person will invest in things relative to the importance of those things to him. As I've said, this investment doesn't necessarily have to be money, but money is easily quantifiable and is almost, if not completely, universally regarded as valuable. So, here are some examples (in addition to those above) of money showing what is really important to people:

• It's a generally accepted fact that Christians, on average, tithe 2-3% of their income rather than the commanded 10%. (The slightly bigger house, fast food, cable TV, etc. are arguably more important than the 10% "donation".) [By the way, please don't flame me. I fall into this group, and I know it's wrong.]
• Walmart is still in business (and profiting) despite its wide regard as a pariah among businesses by its employees and customers. (Low prices and employment are a bigger concern than Walmart's business practices and the "plight" of its workers.)
• Consumers have rejected the compostable Sun Chips bag because of its aesthetics despite the wide outcry for "green" products. (The loudness of the bag is a bigger factor than "saving the planet" via reducing waste.)

It is absolutely not my intention to "call anybody out" as a hypocrite for saying one thing and doing another (i.e. if you fall into one of the aforementioned groups). My point is simply that investment (usually money) is perhaps the best way to determine what is truly important to people.

City gets up on its high horse

This morning I caught a story about a proposed jewelery/pawn shop trying to open in downtown Oceanside.

A plan to open an upscale pawn shop in the heart of downtown Oceanside ran into a wall of opposition from a citizens advisory group Wednesday whose members said a pawn shop wasn't what they had in mind for revitalizing the area.

[...]

The committee voted 5-0 to advise the City Council to reject a proposal to open a pawn shop in a vacant store at 205 N. Coast Highway.

This seemed like kind of a bummer to me. The last time my wife and I were in the downtown Oceanside area, we tried to go into a pawn shop. We thought it would be fun to look around. (The place was closed on the day that we were there, unfortunately.) And this place looks like it would be more of a jewelery than pawn shop, anyway.

The pawn shop ---- Coast Jewelry & More ---- would deal in "mostly high-end jewelry pieces and watches," said Jason Lambert, who would manage the store. "We want to fit in, and we want to make everyone happy."

Over time, the focus of the store would likely shift away from offering loans on pawned items to a more conventional retail operation, Lambert said, although he said it would continue offering collateral loans.

The advisory group sees it differently, though.

But committee members said a downtown pawn shop would harken back to a past the city is trying to leave behind, when downtown had a reputation for sleazy bars, strip joints and tattoo parlors.

"It's the wrong location, downtown, as we're trying to bring in more residential and tourists," said committee member Carolyn Krammer. "We don't want our tourists to be subject to people trying to pawn merchandise."

Is the committee afraid that people are going to begin trying to sell their wares to tourists right on the street (as if that weren't already possible)? Or do they just detest the "kind of people" who would patronize a pawn shop for a loan? One thing is clear; the group isn't actually interested in "redevelopment" or increased tax revenue.

[...] the owner of the proposed store, David Mueller, would remodel what has been a vacant space for more than four years and has been "kind of an area for people to hang out and maybe do things we're not crazy about."

Former Oceanside newspaper publisher Tom Missett, who presented the pawn shop plan to the committee, said Mueller would invest about $2 million on the pawn shop.

The committee would prefer that the building (already owned by Mr. Mueller!) remain vacant. His $2 million investment isn't the "kind of money" they want. But the insanity doesn't end with the committee.

Oceanside police also oppose the plan, fearing a new pawn shop would lead to more crime downtown and mean more work for a department already stretched thin, said Lt. Valencia Saadat.

According to police statistics, seven arrests have been made so far this year related to stolen property taken in by pawn shops and $21,000 in stolen property has been recovered.

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but it seems to me that stolen goods were recovered and the offenders arrested and taken off the streets because of pawn shops. Those crimes likely would have never been solved if those goods had simply been sold on the street. The police don't want the extra work (doing what they're paid to do!), though. They don't want it even though the shop manager is willing to jump through all sorts of hoops to make their jobs easier in order to get his store opened.

Besides installing security cameras throughout the store, Lambert said anyone pawning items would have to show identification, sign a slip saying the property belonged to them and have photographs taken of themselves and whatever they're pawning. He said the photographs and other information would be made available to police daily.

Apparently the insanity isn't limited to the city. Sign a slip saying the property isn't stolen? If he thinks that is going to work, then why submit information to the police on a daily basis? Why not just go all the way and take finger prints and a DNA swab? It's too bad. I wouldn't sell anything to a shop that treats its customers like common criminals in this way.

And finally, we have the government serving its own interest.

Bartlett said he'd be fine with the business if it was a jewelry store, but the very use of the term pawn shop is troubling.

"That's semantics but it bothers me," said Bartlett, who lives downtown."I will be strung up if my neighbors are told we are going to have a pawn shop in downtown."

We certainly wouldn't want Mr. Bartlett to lose his position of power, looking down on honest people and crushing their entrepreneurial spirit because he doesn't like the type of business they would open or the clientele it might draw. That empty building will be a much better symbol of his ability to direct the redevelopment of the downtown area.

Government serves its own interest

Last month, a federal district court judge struck down the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy as unconstitutional. Yesterday, that same judge issued an injunction barring its enforcement. It's nice to see someone in government doing something right even when it is for the wrong reason(s). In her ruling, the judge wrote (emphasis mine):

Far from furthering the military's readiness, the discharge of these service men and women had a direct and deleterious effect on this governmental interest.

Governmental interest? What is that? Since when does the government have an interest? That's probably the wrong question; the idea of "governmental" interest goes back a long way. What I find interesting (and disturbing) is the idea, apparently codified in case law if not statutory law, that the government is a separate entity from the people. In reality, the people have an interest, and the government is supposed to serve that interest. At least, that is what our founding and governing documents would have us believe.

In addition, the government's interest appears to extend to preventing gays from marrying, not just serving in the military. President Obama has directed the justice department to appeal a July ruling against the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act:

"As a policy matter, the President has made clear that he believes DOMA is discriminatory and should be repealed," said Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler. "The Justice Department is defending the statute, as it traditionally does when acts of Congress are challenged."

Essentially, what this spokesperson is saying is, "We don't like the law, but we have a duty to enforce it." That is an absolute cop out. Government employees take an oath to "support and defend the constitution". That is, no person has a duty to enforce unconstitutional laws. This law plainly violates the 1st, 10th, and 14th amendments, not to mention that involving itself in marriage is not one of the federal government's enumerated powers. Perhaps, however, the government can show that somehow this law constitutes an economic activity that falls under the commerce clause.

The idea of a government official saying one thing and doing another should come as no surprise to anyone, though, and while I don't mean to pick on Obama, specifically, he is currently the most prominent example of government officials doing exactly that.

• On closing Guantanamo Bay: says / does
• On habeas corpus rights: says / does
• On executive power: says / does

And in spite of that, he wants everyone to keep hoping for change:

"The question, once again, is going to be whether hope overcomes fear," Obama said at a webcast event meant to buck up young supporters who helped him to victory two years ago, but who are less enthused by mid-term polls.

The question should really be whether hope can overcome reality. This article, in my opinion, answers that question.

So while the electorate recognizes that they are electing at best incompetents and at worst crooks, the constant, naïve, prodemocracy mantra is that "we just need to elect the right people." But, the "right people" aren't (and won't be) running for office. Instead, we will continue to have "the average American legislator [who] is not only an ass," as Mencken wrote, "but also an oblique, sinister, depraved and knavish fellow."

If you vote, you're a statist

I began reading a book called Moral Politics last night. (It can be found on Google Books, here.) I plowed through the first two chapters which basically comprise an introduction for the rest of the book relatively quickly. So far, it appears that the author divides politics, and those who participate in them, into two basic camps: conservative and liberal. He then introduces the idea that the nation, the U.S. in particular, is a family (or at least that it is viewed this way by its citizens) with the government acting as a parent and the citizenry as its children. Finally, he lays down his main thesis that people's view of government comes from the moral structure by which they live their own lives. Ultimately, he arrives at the conclusion that conservatives view the government as a "strict father", and liberals view it as a "nurturing mother" (or "parent").

The strict father model holds that the government's job is to give "tough love" to its citizens to prepare them to be self-sufficient. As such, it should be tough on crime and make sure that discipline is swift and decisive. It should also not get involved with "entitlement" programs like social security, health insurance, or unemployment benefits. The strict father view is not heartless. Social programs may have their place for short periods, but the emphasis is always on discipline and self-reliance.

The nurturing parent model holds that the role of government is to support its citizens by understanding their problems and the causes of them and helping them work through them so that they can become self-sufficient. In this role, the government would provide rehabilitation programs to criminals while they "do their time". It would be understanding that people's economic troubles are not necessarily of their own doing and that things like health insurance and unemployment benefits are necessary to help people get "back on their feet" and become self-sufficient. In short, discipline and self-reliance are good things, but the emphasis is always on helping people find their way back to those ideals.

As I read these first two chapters, I couldn't help but feel that I didn't fit into either category. And maybe that's not the point. I think the author's purpose is not to help people fit into one camp or the other but to explain why the two camps think the way they do. Nevertheless, I couldn't help trying to fit myself into some neat little box so that I could then decide how I felt about what the author was saying. Eventually, I realized that my problem with this book (at least so far) is that the author never questions the existence, legitimacy, or authority (moral or otherwise) of the government (or as I like to refer to it in these types of discussions, the State). (I'd like to explore this in later posts.)

In the context of the book, the conservative and liberal labels only apply insofar as they describe political views. As far as I am concerned, conservatives and liberals are the same. While they disagree about the means (strict vs. nurturing) by which to achieve their ends (a disciplined and self-reliant society), they do agree that those means are best carried out by the State. They're statists. I imagine that statism is most closely associated with fascism in many people's minds and therefore typically associated with conservatives and those on the political right. Statism, though is the belief that the State has a major role, economic or otherwise, to play in people's lives. Given this view, statism can be equally associated with socialism which is a commonly associated with liberals and those on the political left.

Now, let me connect the dots between the title of this post and everything I've written up to this point. When a person participates in the electoral system and votes, he legitimizes the system. As such, he agrees to be bound by the outcome, and regardless of which person is put into power or which law is enacted, the result is always the same: the State is legitimized. No matter which person or law a person votes for or against, that person is always voting for the State. The only way to vote against the State is to not vote at all.

If you're still reading, you've probably realized that I don't vote. If you were paying attention, then you'll realize that the old line, "if you don't vote, you can't complain" is exactly backwards. By voting, you agree that the process and the outcome are legitimate and to be bound by them. I, on the other hand, by refusing to vote lend no such legitimacy to the process or the outcome. Therefore, I'm actually the only one who can complain.

Moral Politics

A friend recently suggested that I read the book Moral Politics. In preparation for reading, I typed "moral politics" into Google, and this link was at the top. I clicked it, thinking that it was a website related to the book. It wasn't. Instead, it was a link to some kind of moral politics test that I couldn't resist taking. Here is the result:

This represents a score of -0.5 on the Moral Order axis and a -7 on the Moral Rules axis. It's still not clear to me what exactly each of those represents, but according to the website, I'm an "Ultra Liberal", which is interesting because I would consider myself a "Libertarian Capitalist". I'm guessing that expressing a belief that there is a higher power and that morality does have a place in my personal life means that I'm not sufficiently capitalistic. I blame the wording/interpretation of the questions.

What I found most interesting about the result, though, were the statistics that came along with it. According to the website, only 1% of the approximately 650,000 people who have taken the test are more conservative than me. On the other hand, only 1% of those same people are more liberal than me.

Take the test for yourself and see what it says about you.