SF's Unrepentant Moralism
by neolibertarian
Coyote blog brings up the SF plan to force people to recycle or risk losing garbage services.
I agree with his point, this is stupid and wasteful from an economic perspective, especially since time is such a valuable resource. The economic justifications (more jobs, higher income from scrap sales, whatever else) are simply added to paper over the program. The idea of a practical justification offers a common-sense veneer to what is a profoundly religious-emotional policy direction; a lot of people out here have certain social preferences regarding business and consumerism and they want to see them legislated. Pretending that it makes some sort of fiscal sense gives cover to guys like Newsom (a relative moderate for SF) to advance the position. Although in SF even the moderates like Newsom and his Board of Supervisors allies tend to be pretty hawkish on the environment.
I'll add to morganovich's list the ban on using city funds to purchase bottled water (a practice they want to force on city restaurants) on the theory that: the plastic is bad, the transportation involved in shipping it is bad, dams and reservoirs like Hetch Hetchy are bad and it's morally wrong to profit off the sale of natural resources. Newsom also said city water is cleaner than bottled water, abandoning all but the last pretense of tolerance and openly admitting that the San Francisco City and County government is the ultimate arbiter in matters of economics, morality and now taste buds.
I'm a little surprised that SF business owners aren't more hesitant on these green issues. Businesses here differentiate themselves based on their greeniness (in addition to their authenticity or exclusivity) in ways that businesses in other areas pride themselves on quality products or good customer service (something clearly not native to the Bay Area). There's a pizza place in Marin County that is entirely solar-powered (well, it contributes solar to the grid during bright periods and draws power in exchange during dim periods) and tons of people go to it solely for the greeniness of it. I go because the pizza's pretty good, like Italy meets New York. But if governments around here are going to force everybody draw from solar energy, then that establishment will have lost its edge - a big loss both for the hundreds of thousands they shelled out to buy the panels and for the money they've spent on promotional boxes and other materials with the solar bragging rights printed on them.
Of course, there's something in the culture here about bossing people around. Even being on a cell phone in pbulic, especially on some form of public transportation, can bring intense stares. On several occasions I've seen people stand up on buses and literally try to stare somebody into hanging up, which usually works. One lady was so mad that every time a guy on his cell phone would say something (he was a little loud compared to the people here, who can be shy and whisper quiet) she would open her eyes wide, lift her eyebrows, and jerk up out of her seat to stare at him. It was very fluid and aggressive and she came off like some sort of psycho killer with the flaring eyes. But the point is that she felt like she needed to be the moral arbiter and boss that guy around - who does he think he is, speaking slightly louder than normal IN PUBLIC?
People are very prone to lectures here. My girlfriend, a very conscientious person, was lectured at a laundromat when she removed someone's abandoned undergarment from a dryer and it fell on the floor. The lecturer at first pretended to think that it was her garment and he was helping her retrieve, but when she denied ownership he started edging quickly into a (low-volume) lecture delivered bare inches from her face. If you let your dog chase pigeons in the City, beware the lectures from passersby defending the pigeons from your assault. Earlier this week in my parking garage I was told (while carrying a newly purchased plastic shelf set) by a very self-satisfied middle-aged woman that "I just don't do Wal-Mart."
It's a beautiful area with a nice, cool climate that suits me well, but the people here - though often polite and interactive - can be narrow-minded, moralizing busybodies with a lecture always at the ready.
McCain's Reasonable Honesty His Downfall?
by neolibertarian
Democrats are playing dirty, especially Howard Dean, who has led the charge to maliciously and blatantly misinterpret John McCain's comment that an uneventful, peaceful occupation of Iraq for 100 years would be acceptable.
In response to a town hall question about staying in Iraq for 50 years, McCain said "make it a hundred." Then he said "That would be fine with me, as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed." Yet somehow Howard Dean, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, as well as tons of media types, have twisted that into an endless war with troops fighting and dying.
McCain himself compared it to Korea and Japan, and we've had a presence in those countries as well as others like Germany and Iceland for over half a century - and those countries aren't overwhelmingly violent toward us. Iceland doesn't really even have a military, it relies on the US for that purpose.
I'm not certain that 100 years in any foreign country is necessarily a good thing. It can breed resentment - on the part of the military country for uncompensated support (most of Europe still owes the US for the postwar aid programs), on the part of the host country for an unwelcome presence, and it can heighten tension during periods of disagreement. But the presence can also have positive (if somewhat expensive) effects, such as projecting force, providing stability, and showing commitment.
Regardless of the merits of the issue of peacefully remaining in a country, though, the Democrats want to smear McCain as a crazy warmonger and will step on the principles of charitable debate and honesty to do so.
How is it that the Democrats can fight their entire campaign on the premise that Republicans are evil slanderers when they're willfully misinterpreting a mainstream opinion (if politically insensitive) into a hyper-extreme one? Clearly the Democrats are at least as bad when it comes to tough campaigning. In this case, though, McCain has alienated supporters and suspended staff in order to enforce his demand for a clean campaign, as well as defend Max Cleland and John Kerry from the unfair attacks Democrats cite. He defended both Hillary and Obama as good and patriotic Senators, defended Obama from using his middle name as a slur, and has gone out of his way to play nice with the two candidates. And the Democrats' high-minded response? Slander him as a heartless warmonger.
Of course, McCain does have support for argument that a prolonged presence is reasonable. At the time of the invasion, a General said this: "[W]e'll be there a century, hopefully. If it works right." That was General McPeak, Obama endorser and war critic, who has featured very prominently as a character witness for Obama in the last week.
Democrats Embrace Protectionism
by neolibertarian
The Democrats, being both extremely insecure against charges of insufficient patriotism and being extremely awkward in their continuing push for faux-socialism, are moving more wholeheartedly against their supposed internationalist credibility.
We're supposed to believe that, because the Democrats want to cave in to pressure on the war in Iraq and in 2003 they wanted to listen to whatever France and Germany said, they must be more popular in the rest of the world. While it seems fairly clear that leaving Iraq would earn us no friends and alienate allies in the region (now tasked with fighting Iran's influence alone), I don't see how the Democrats' protectionism is going to win friends.
Obama and Clinton both promised a few weeks ago that if they could not secure agreement from Mexico and Canada to renegotiate NAFTA, they would both use their authority (as President) to withdraw from the agreement. Of course, Mexico and Canada are both sovereign countries that can't just be forced into obligations and that have their own problems with free trade. The difference is that Canada and Mexico want to make trade freer, whereas Obama and Clinton want trade to be less free.
I recall that in 2004 John Kerry made some very xenophobic comments about opening firehouses and schools in Iraq and closing them in America. In other words, the Democrats want us to help poor people as long as those poor people are in America; foreigners can go to hell. Nobody much picked up on this line, which I think displays a severe moral and philosophical failing of the mainstream Democrats.
Well that tactic is back and stronger than ever, now amplified with a general repudiation of globalization. In complaining about a government appropriation that went to a joint US-EU partnership, Rahm Emanuel had this to say:Having made sure that Iraq gets new schools, roads, bridges and dams that we deny America, now we are making sure that France gets the jobs that Americans used to have...
This is a dreadfully fascinating statement that should be recognized as xenophobic, isolationist and protectionist. Any politician who uttered the same words but with 'black people' inserted for France and 'white people' inserted for Americans would be run out of national politics on a rail. Rahm Emanuel is a stirring up primal hatreds for the sake of cheap political points and the foggy prospect of a minor and temporary political gain.
LaRouche and Buchanan seem to grow ever stronger in the Democratic party's philosophy. So why are people who style themselves as cosmopolitan, international, educated and tolerant so busy trashing foreign trade, foreign outsourcing and foreign receipt of US aid? In my opinion, a few reasons.
First, leftists are insecure about having their patriotism questioned. They think it's extremely unfair (even as many of them openly admit to their ambivalence and hostility toward the US) and they nurse wounds over it. Second, leftists are already opposed to spending money on Iraq and opposed to capitalism's ever-shifting markets that sometimes result in US job losses.
Since it requires no actual policy changes, this is merely a matter of linking the issues to shore up a weak point. They turn their opposition to the Iraq war -a perceived soft spot on the patriotism front- into the REAL patriotism. In other words, "we're SO pro-America that we don't want to spend on foreigners." Then they take opposition to globalization, corporations and capitalism and turn it into patriotism as well.
The result is not at all pretty and displays both intellectual dishonesty and an arrogant disrespect for those unfortunate enough to be caught on the wrong side of their rants.
In the end, we find three things:
1. The party against angering the rest of the world thinks that all the global economy should be subverted to the whims of America, no matter how loudly they oppose that.
2. The party against forgetting the basic physical needs of the poor wants to let the foreign poor twist in the wind for domestic political concerns.
3. The party against questioning another's patriotism will impugn your patriotism if you disagree with their isolationist and socialist agendas.
Don't yell at me for painting Democrats with a broad brush. Any Democrat who doesn't think that House Democratic Caucus Chair Emanuel's xenophobia should represent the whole party can direct complaints to him at the Democratic Caucus: call 202-225-1400.
If anybody does bother to call, you might ask how the Democrats can heal wounds with the world while restricting their access to our markets and telling them that foreigners don't deserve jobs as much as Americans do.
Why This Libertarian Is Happy to Vote McCain
by neolibertarian
Let me start by referencing my libertarian credentials and philosophy. Ideologically, I'm closest to an anarcho-capitalist; I believe that free interactions of whatever nature should be perfectly legal and that the government should have no more power than any individual when it comes to the freedom of others. For more on my ideological bent, see this link just off the homepage.
So I'm not going to sit here and argue that John McCain is a libertarian, nor that he's the closest we'll get to one in the White House (Reagan was clearly closer than anyone in the last few generations, maybe ever) or even to one in Congress. I am saying that he's a decent guy with a generally optimistic, classical-liberal approach to the world (despite his clear centralist undertones and nationalist overtones) and that he's undoubtedly better than either Barack Obama or Ron Paul.
Ron Paul has suspended his presidential run but I'm using him as a stand-in for a paleo-libertarian candidate both because he might endorse the LP candidate and because I'm still pissed that he run such an anti-liberty campaign.
Let's go issue by issue.
IMMIGRATION
Ron Paul wants to revoke the birth-citizenship portion of the Fourteenth Amendment (maybe retroactively?) and kick out all the peaceful people who came here to live, work and raise families in freedom. He's concerned that too many Americans are losing their jobs. Well if that rationale doesn't work to repeal capitalism in times of recession, why should it repeal freedom of movement in times of immigration? Ron Paul should be held to higher standard because he's supposedly a libertarians, so he flunks the immigration test.
Barack Obama has a very reasonable position on this issue, if a rather vague one. I don't have a lot of complaints here, except that he's very happy to punish employers. he's running in a left-tilting primary that punished more than casual condemnation of Iran, that moved the Democrats into an actively anti-trade position, and that produced a center-left consensus for some manner of universal health care. Even in this environment, he managed to sound less pro-immigration than John McCain. Still, he's marginally better on this issue than Hillary, and clearly better than most of the GOP field was.
I give John McCain extra points here because even when running in a GOP primary where he was flamed for his 'amnesty' bill, he never compromised in principle. He relented in the manner of priorities (securing the border first instead of in parallel with a citizenship path) but he held firm that immigrants are people, too. His up-front position on this bill is laudable.
FREE TRADE
Ron Paul used every mention of free trade not to tout his own more-capitalist-than-thou credentials (which should be undisputed) but instead to dredge up every Kucinich-LaRouche anti-globalization theory in the world. He could've couched his opposition more clearly as a denunciation of trade bureaucracies instead of globalization itself, but in debates barely tried to do so. He's trying to capitalize on fear of markets, hatred of corporations, and distrust of foreigners. He also supports raising tariffs to replace the lost income tax revenue, even though tariffs are also taxes borne by consumers. Again, the Libertarian should be able to brag of his strong support for capitalism and the markets.
Barack Obama was previously a little more reserved in bashing global capitalism, but with blue-collar primaries in WI, OH and PA he became much more pessimistic and cynical towards NAFTA and other trade deals. He's even to the point where he criticizes Mexico pretty regularly for supposedly taking US jobs. An extremely predictable, dreary and hateful view of globalization from the 'hope-monger.'
John McCain, by contrast, is one of the strongest free traders ever in the Senate. He's philosophically and pragmatically inclined to free trade, he thinks it will make all parties freer, richer and more peaceful and he wants to open up trade with countries around the world. High marks for McCain.
PORK BARREL & ETHANOL
Ron Paul is pretty darn good on pork barrel and ethanol, and even goes so far as to point out that funding projects like ethanol isn't really in the Constitution. Of course, though he claims not to have voted for earmarks, he does insert pork barrel earmarks. His defense is that this is simply returning taxpayers' money back to their district. This argument is not wholly unreasonable on its face. But if earmarks are unconstitutional to vote for, why are they okay to insert at all? Sounds like somebody's playing local politics. He could've stood so much further above the rest here but instead he played the game. At least Don Young thinks that pork barrel earmarks are 100% okay ("this is my money! you're trying to take away my money!") but Ron Paul knows they're ridiculous. It's like saying that you think the death penalty is wrong but then strapping somebody down on the guillotine while refusing to drop the blade personally. Adding an earmark to a budget is far worse than merely voting for an earmarked budget.
Barack Obama likes to talk a little about earmarks but last I heard he still hadn't revealed his 2005 and 2006 earmarks - only his 2007 earmarks. He's also earmarked quite a bit, so clearly he thinks the practice is legitimate. He's also pro-ethanol supports, so at least he's consistently pro-wasteful spending.
John McCain is one of the top authorities on pork barrel, having been against it for years. He regularly goes to the floor to denounce wasteful pork projects and their effect on both the budget and the country's faith in its legislature. He's never inserted an earmark and he pledged to veto as president all earmarks.
TAXES
Ron Paul is pretty awesome on taxes, there's no doubt, although his argument that we should increase tariffs to compensate for lost revenue is boneheaded and anti-liberty. Still, Ron Paul does this one pretty well - if only during his campaign he could've spent more time on taxes and less time on the ominous conspiracy to build a supersecret Mexican highway to connect to Canada by way of Kansas. Dork.
Barack Obama is not good on taxes, though at least he offers the promise of those 'targeted middle-class tax cuts.' After spending like crazy, at least he admits he wants to raise taxes - both repealing the Bush taxes (meaning a partial return of the estate tax) and an enormous tax on Social Security - lifting the payroll tax cap, making for the country's largest-ever tax hike.
John McCain is weaker on taxes than most Republicans, though his history is clear. In his quarter-century in the Congress, he's voted for tons of tax cuts, never voted for a tax hike, and voted for the 2001 tax cut until the corresponding spending cuts were removed (though at the time he gave some total socialist argument, which was popular with the lefties and the media). He's promised to extend the Bush tax cuts, and he voted to do so in 2006 and since. I'm hoping that I can trust him to stick by this promise, because allowing them to expire is at this point practically a tax hike.
I have a lot of other reasons to vote for him, not least of all his commitment to human freedom with regard to the war. Overall, I'm glad to be voting for the guy and that I switched registrations to vote for him in the CA primary.
GOP Primary
by neolibertarian
Here's the GOP race as I see it, as voting in the Michigan primary goes on right now.
- McCain is winning, but it's a tenuous lead. He's over 10 points ahead of his closest rival in the RCP national average. That still only means 30%, though. If he wins a few more primaries, he might lock up Feb 5th with a slew of victories. It's still possible that he'll falter, especially with his so many deficiencies to conservative eyes. He needs to stick to his guns and not lose the McCain trademark spirit.
- Rudy's late-state strategy is not working, since he's been out of the news of top runners for weeks, just as everybody is watching. He has been so unpopular he can't contest primaries anywhere outside the Atlantic Northeast and a few other states like FL and CA. If the guy is so unpopular that he can't come in the top 3 in primaries in New England, the Midwest or the Deep South, how can he seriously sell us his 50-state appeal? He's supposed to be the guy with this amazingly broad appeal, but he doesn't appeal to Democrats and he doesn't pull in the Midwest. He's not gone, but he's polling poorly right now. I think his authoritarian and unfriendly style make him a very poor candidate, which is the SINGLE quality that makes him popular among a small subset of Republicans that thinks being a belligerent jerk constitutes diplomacy.
- Romney is practically out, though not yet. I'm not going out on a limb to say that he's almost finished. He's had to put all his money and time into hopefully squeaking out a win in Michigan - a state where he's been running for two years, a state where his dad was elected and a state where he relentlessly pushes provincial messages like "I'm from here" and "I'll spend everybody else's money on giving economically-backwards Michigan more jobs." Even if he wins (exit polls suggest he's doing well and that Democrats and independents won't be able to save McCain this time) he's unlikely to repeat it without a more dramatic turnaround. Romney winning won't destroy McCain, who's still ahead nationally and in the next two states SC and FL, but will Romney be able to do anything with a MI victory? It seems unlikely that he'll suddenly shoot up in the polls in the states to come based on a MI victory. Romney is probably a really nice, intelligent and competent guy, who unfortunately provides little assurance that he truly stands for anything.
- Huckabee has narrow appeal, and despite being a candidate full of smiles and quick, well-delivered responses is a poor policymaker. He actively insulted the two of the bedrock pillars of the GOP when he made class-warfare arguments against Wall Street and called Bush's administration arrogant and defensive. He won't win and his anti-capitalist brand of GOP politics will probably not bring about some dramatic shift of the GOP away from free markets. Huckabeee might bring in some performances here and there, or even some victories in Southern or conservative primaries, but his main role now will be to futz up the other guys' campaigns. If I were with Huckabee now, I'd tell him to stick with the nice guy routine, campaign hard in states where he has a shot, but otherwise sit back and aim for VP. However, if any GOP candidate actually does make Huckabeee the VP nominee, I'll be much more likely to vote third party rather than give my support to that guy.
- Fred Thompson is just not what people want to see in a President. It's too bad, because he has fresh ideas and a keen intellect, if not an especially young or snappy style of speech and manner. He's deliberate, intelligent and too unpolished to impress. He's still my choice, though, and I hope he can bring in at least one victory somewhere. It's not unreaonable to say that he would be a great consensus conservative, with the ideological consistency lacking in the top 4 candidates. I don't know if that matters, but if McCain does fall, Thompson has far less baggage as a GOP candidate than Rudy or Romney. He'll most likely drop out of the race after he loses South Carolina, especially if McCain wins there.
- Ron Paul ought to be the most exciting thing to me in politics in years. He has more support than any LP candidate could dream of and he has oodles of money. But his relentless pursuit of the xenophobic, the regressive, the reactionary and the pessimistic have made him one of my least favorite choices this year. He would never have won, of course, but it's sad that when the libertarians finally get something like a broad movement going, it has to be coalescing around an anti-globalization, anti-immigrant, anti-democratization theme. Of course, outside fringe groups tend to be made up of people who dislike society and its direction.
I'm glad overall that McCain is doing pretty well, and even if he loses tonight he's probably going to stay in decent shape in FL, SC and beyond. He's able to look at the federal government without wholly accepting it on its own terms. He can question the stupidity of corrupt pork spending even after years of being in Congress. He has a lot of policy positions I flat out dislike, but I have more trust for the guy because of his style and personality and willingness to call 'bullshit' on stupid ideas. Rudy, Huckabee and Romney strike me as less independent and often have worse political perspectives than McCain.
Immigration's Failure
by neolibertarian
Wasn't immigration supposed to be the grand issue that would determine the success of candidates for the next few years? Supposedly it would rip the Democrats asunder in their attempt to play both sides, and it would sweep law and order Republicans over business Republicans. Forget that Linda Chavez already gave evidence debunking this myth.
We have some new evidence. Mitt Romney, who has unashamedly gone further than any of his major rivals in capitalizing on immigration and making a hard stand against immigrants, is faltering and unable to capture the support of Republicans. His main base of support outside Mormons seems to be the impression that he's the rally candidate, the standard all conservatives can buy into. Well he's losing and immigration isn't saving him.
He even tries to hedge, talking about how he's only against illegal immigration (if so, then why not legalize future immigrants, thus avoiding this problem?) and accusing Rudy Giuliani of racism. Tancredo hedged far less and he had to drop out weeks ago, despite running on a strongly cultural anti-immigrant platform. Duncan Hunter is running strongly on China and immigration and he gets nowhere.
Fred Thompson, who despite his anti-immigration record is my preferred candidate, has the most consistent track record on the issue. Although he is more careful than Romney or Rudy to stay within the confines of border security instead of a cultural or economic battle, even he is having trouble selling his message.
Rudy used to be unabashedly pro-immigration. He's moderated and lied and muddled into a more mainstream anti-illegal immigration guy.
Huckabee was notable for being supportive of tuition support to children of illegal immigrants. He's since been endorsed by the Minutemen and along with Romney wants to kick them all out before they can come back in.
John McCain is the most pro-immigrant, though he now agrees to prioritize border security first before addressing the immigrants here. He's not trying to send all the immigrants back and wants substantially the same immigration plan that supposedly destroyed him last year. He just won New Hampshire.
If immigration is such an amazing issue - and clearly it has pull - then why aren't Romney and Tancredo duking it out in Michigan right now? Instead, Huckabee and McCain are challenging Mitt in his dad's home state.
Immigration is just not that great an issue. Waving a Mexican flag in the US pisses people off (because it's interpreted in a hostile way, rather than a community symbol, like the irish flag in Boston). Not learning English pisses people off. And apparently, walking through the desert so that your kid can have a future also pisses people off. But are these pissed off people both numerous and organized enough that they'll put immigration as a top priority? Apparently not.
My guess is that a lot of people of different political persuasions are pissed off at the incongruence of the law versus a widespread occurrence. Count me in that group - the law should be enforced and real (though I don't want this law enforced; I want it repealed). Many people are probably upset at the cultural implications of foreign-speaking, different-looking, strange people around; others don't like the chaotic and uncontrolled nature of the situion. I am emphatically not in either of these groups.
But the people who are most affected by these issues, aside from those who are victims of a crime perpetrated by an assumedly illegal immigrant (my sense is that this group is smaller than the alarmists suggest) the only people truly affected by immigration of any type are the immigrants and those who do business with them here.
So once it's felt that the situation is being addressed, that politicians notice the problem, people calm way down. For a while, it was easy for pundits and agitators to easily claim that immigration as an issue was being overlooked (to some degree, it surely was). That made it easy for people to get their blood up. But now that everybody sees the issue and there's a broad consensus to do SOMETHING, it loses a lot of salience as an issue.
The hardcore control freaks and the racists will always keep shouting. Others will continue on being ver upset and ranking the issue highly. But for the most part, as the issue is addressed, regular Americans will chill out and we'll still have the large number of people who sell and market products to Hispanic people and the large number of people who employ or hire Hispanic people. So the strength will swing back a little towards the mildly pro-immigration side.
On a related note, isn't it interesting that Ron Paul doesn't want to fight Muslim fascists, didn't want to fight Confederate tyrants, and only supported fighting German and Japanese fascists because we provoked them into it - YET, he wants to use any means necessary to prevent Mexicans from crossing a line and going to work. Hmm, so Holocaust, slavery, terrorism are not bad enough to warrant our military's attention. But crossing an imaginary line to word in agriculture should activate the Third Army. What a reactionary dork.
Reactionary 'Libertarian' Ron Paul
by neolibertarian
The old Ron Paul scandal that a number of bigoted and paranoid statements were published in a newsletter bearing his name has resurfaced. Apparently this came up Monday or Tuesday, in time for the NH primary. I'd heard of this one a while back, but nobody thinks Ron Paul will win no matter how much money he raises (you can't buy a free and fair election without a good candidate - see Mitt Romney on that one) so nobody bothered to publicize it or research it.
Why trash Ron Paul? His biggest function is to sit there in debates, and (despite being earnest in trying to answer questions instead of spinning them) let the other Republicans look good by trashing his wacko beliefs. He's sort of like Don Knotts was to Andy Griffith: a loser goofball who makes you look good by comparison.
Ron Paul says he takes moral responsibility but that he never wrote it or believed it and somebody else used his name with permission, but without oversight. Whatever, I was never very comfortable with Ron Paul on race anyway; his casual way of defending his interracial appeal by saying that "blacks" and "Hispanics" come to rallies struck me as too overtly racial. But is he a racist? I don't know. Regardless if he is, I can't support the guy.
Don't get me wrong, I've always admired Ron Paul to some degree, if only because he was the lonely libertarian in Congress. Although he's probably accomplished almost nothing in his terms of office, he was at least a voice for sanity. When Congress was debating whether to pass the Patriot Act and other restrictions on freedom for four years or for five years (basically, not whether the Constitution should be suspended but for how long it should be suspended) it was Ron Paul who pointed out hwo crazy it all was.
I knew I'd have trouble voting for him, though, even though he's a pro-life libertarian. His thinking has always come from a rules-oriented, state-focused consitutionalism, rather than a freedom-oriented, individual-focused minarchism. Ron Paul might be ideologically libertarian, but his political positions are almost entirely based on his view of the Constitution. And that's great, but I'd rather have somebody who can argue why freedom is so good instead of bitching and moaning that we aren't following the rules. Ron Paul argues 98% for the rules and only 2% for why the rules need to be there.
I want a candidate with an abiding passion and faith in the Constitution and laws of the US, but I want him to be able to articulate and convince people why those rules are in place. Simply arguing that the rules are the rules is not very persuasive. It doesn't create a real constituency for freedom. It also means that if they merely managed to change the rules, you'd have no further objection to use.
Ron Paul is also overly focused on sovereignty, to the point where it's ridiculous. He wants states to have the authority to decide whether murder is a crime, he wants foreign powers to have the power to murder, rape and destroy their citizens with absolute impunity (provided they don't kill Americans or cross an imaginary line). I could chalk this up to an anarchist's purity (something I'm also afflicted by, though differently from Ron Paul-itarians) except that Ron Paul is happy to deviate from total anarchism in some rather anti-libertarian ways:
- he supports tariffs as a means of raising revenue (sure the Constitution supports is taxing foreign businesses any less immoral than taxing Americans? and Americans just have to shoulder the extra cost anyway)
- he supports clamping down on the border by 'any means necessary' because Americans are supposedly losing work (so Americans being displaced as hotel maids is a justification for a vast military presence in TX, NM, AZ and CA but the unchecked tyranny and genocide in Afghanistan and Iraq is insufficient justification for a benevolent military presence elsewhere)
- he wants to rejigger citizenship rules by amending the Constitution in order to exclude children of immigrants from the benefits and protections of citizenship, even if they are born here (if he were an anarchist, he wouldn't buy so completely into borders and he wouldn't be so gung-ho on using citizenship to exclude people with the wrong parents)
- he opposes the War on Terror, the Civil War and is shaky on World War II (Japan probably would have ignored us if not for our embargo against them)
That last one is more important than you'd think because it's an indication of a libertarian's larger views. Among libertarians, the paleolibertarians are against the Civil War - paleos don't care about the effects of the Civil War, any justifications or the fact that the South obviously and admittedly seceded simply for slavery. Most paleos just care about the size of government becuase of the war and the fight for black civil rights. They almost always judge the Civil War negatively because in a few ways the government expanded its power afterwards. Perhaps not coincidentally, a lot of prominent paleolibertarians are from the South, like Lew Rockwell and Ron Paul. Many, however, are not Southern and simply apply an isolationist or anarchist viewpoint to the Civil War.
Neolibertarians, or at least those libertarians whom I'm claiming as neolibertarian for the purpose of this discussion, are more willing to accept that, though the government did not start out with the most libertarian argument at the outset, the Civil War was decidedly about slavery and achieved many good things. The expansion of government was unfortunate but if a federal government is to exist at all, surely it must police oppression within its own border instead of merely watching for foreign armies invading.
Most paleos and other anti-Union, anti-Lincoln libertarians trend closer to anarchism than Ron Paul, though. Ron Paul is not much of a libertarian, but rather more of an extreme conservative. He ends up very close to libertarian, but he thinks the Constitution is the highest goal, not liberty.
Since almost all libertarians operate largely on the principle that people precede laws, they end up arguing one of three things:
a) freedom is morally paramount, so laws must be created to protect it
b) freedom is most utilitarian, so laws must be created to protect it
c) freedom is morally paramount, and laws must not be created as they would hinder it
Ron Paul is in a different category, which isn't strictly libertarian in the philosophical sense:
d) the Constitution exists, so we must follow it
Rather than a discussion of why, how and when the laws come into place, Ron Paul just cares that the Constitution is here. This is a conservative argument, that the rules must be followed for their own sake. While he takes it in a libertarian direction for the most part, his argument is not philosophically libertarian. It's philosophically conservative - follow the rules, follow tradition. Coupled with his reactionary (even socialist-compatible) views on immigration and globalization, Ron Paul is very conservative. He's much more reactionary and anti-trade than most of the Democrats and much more reactionary and anti-immigration than most of the Republicans.
If Ron Paul just said that the Constitution should not change, but society can change and be fluid, that would be a libertarian political stand. But Ron Paul says that he wants the Constitution AND the society to stay unchanging. That's a very conservative stand.
He's also clearly appealing to those with anti-libertarian motivations and aims. Appealing to anti-globalization, anti-capitalist, anti-trade, anti-war, anti-immigrant types is a pretty depressing and even spiteful campaign strategy. Accepting the support of 9/11 Truthers and various Bircher/neo-Nazi types with a wink is worse. This is not the kind of campaign I want to support or be associated with, no matter how good a President Paul would be on taxes or privacy.
A vote for Ron Paul will be interpreted as a vote against free trade, a vote against immigration, a vote against the war on Muslim fascists, a vote against engaging the world in a meaningful and effective way. Ron Paul is pushing some good ideas, but whenever he gets a chance to decide for himself what he wants to say and choose to emphasize, he'll always focus it in a pessimistic, anti-change, anti-status quo.
Good libertarians need to realize that Ron Paul is not our salvation or even a step in the right direction. He is WORSE on issues where's it's comparatively easy to be pro-capitalist and anti-state.
Ron Paul may be a libertarian in some ways, but he's the reactionary-conservative candidate in this race. A vote for Ron Paul is a vote against modernity and against a dynamic society.
My Hope for the Primaries
by neolibertarian
Huckabee has problems in the 2008 race:
- he has very little campaign structure) though he is making
- he has very little policy ability, and despite some one-liners like the FairTax and energy independence, can't back up his wild ideas with substance
- he's opposed by a large chunk of the conservative pundits and experts as unserious, ideologically weird and generally a poor candidate (though leftists seem to like his class-warfare, anti-GOP arguments)
- he has a track record of weird comments and scarred reputation, including a large number of ethics investigations and a huge volume of gift-giving that, though they may be 100% unsubstantiated, definitely gives the odor of a corrupt man with a lot of baggage
- he has very little money despite an extremely strong surge to nearly closing the national gap with Rudy and running ahead in every early primary state except NH
Huckabee is definitely doing very well for himself right now, given how he's charged to the front of the pack to lead or compete in all the first month's contests except NH. But he is seriously out of step with Republicans on both economic and security issues.
His website lists a lot of stock conservative policies for the war on terror and Israel, but without much thought. But when Huck goes off-the-cuff, his main point is criticizing the Bush administration for not cuddling up with world opinion. I'm not really a security-conservative guy, but Huck clearly doesn't have a very developed set of beliefs in this area.
And if the Club For Growth's white paper on Huckabee didn't give you enough reasons to fear this populist, then the way Huck has disagreed with them should make it clear he's no economic-conservative; he thinks it's funny to call it the Club For Greed. He's also said, "If the Republican Party becomes the wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street, we’re going to kill our chance of being elected next year and maybe for a generation to come." Class warfare. Who is this guy, the Jenny Craig version of William Jennings Bryan? Come on.
So, I'm thinking Huckabee is doomed to a precipitous fall. I'll bet, just my feeling, that his support is thin because he's still a new and relatively unknown quantity to a lot of his new supporters. Their loyalties are not cemented, especially in IA where voters tend to be very choosy and skeptical about their support. States after IA have had less exposure and hence less loyalty in their picks.
Scrutiny will rise, with lots of negative press about how Huckabee is thin-skinned, about corruption allegations, Huckabee might make a gaffe or two, and I think his numbers will fall.
My hope is that Fred Thompson or John McCain will be the candidate-in-waiting to pick up the support. Romney is a flawed candidate; Rudy is a flawed human being. Thompson is going on a weeks-long tour of Iowa for the rest of the time before the caucus, with a break for Christmas day. Maybe a lot of hand-shaking and barnstorming will build up his support in Iowa. He's still not campaigned all that hard in a lot of places, so maybe some more exposure at the perfect time will get him all those defecting Huckabee votes. After all, these are voters who have already moved away from Romney once and who clearly aren't that in tune with Rudy. McCain, God love him for it, went to Iowa and told them he was opposed to ethanol subsidies (like Goldwater, who was the previous person to hold McCain's seat, going to TN and opposing the TVA or talking to seniors about opposing Social Security). It's awesome, but McCain might have screwed himself over.
Fred can show off his laidback, upright personality and his sober, clearheaded ideas and hopefully he'll see growth in Iowa. That could give him good buzz going into later states like FL and SC. Maybe the attention will help move him on.
At the very least, let's hope Huckabee gets flunked out of the race.
Presidential Primaries - Republicans
by neolibertarian
Well, the Republican primary is not shaping up entirely to my liking. There are several campaigns I utterly despise, several I'm extremely leery of, and several that are looking pretty darn good. I'll start with a loose ranking before I write my thoughts on each more in-depth.
Really like where they're going, for Republicans:
- Sam Brownback (now withdrawn)
- John McCain (is in the top tier, something like 3rd or 4th place) - my second choice for President among those running
- Fred Thompson (bottom of the top tier, probably 4th or 5th place right now) - my first chocie for President among those running
Not completely bad, but definitely going the wrong direction:
- Mitt Romney (1st or 2nd in early states, maybe 4th place nationally) - my third choice for President among those running
- Ron Paul (probably 6th place nationally, King of the Also-Rans)
- Mike Huckabee (1st in Iowa, 2nd nationally)
Seriously creeped out by:
- Rudy Giuliani (1st nationally, 4th or 5th in NH and IA)
- Duncan Hunter (single-digits)
- Tom Tancredo (single-digits)
Sam Browback is just a nice guy. Admission: I'm related to him through my Kansas relatives (my mom's second or third cousin married his brother, is I think how it goes) but have never met him. He seems like a really nice genuine guy. He's pro-immigration, pro-Second Amendment, pro-free trade, very pro-life, and good on other issues like taxes and of course Darfur. He's typically conservative on other issues, like gay rights.
He's a little weird on evolution and Israel. Evolution just doesn't strike me as being up for debate against a non-falsifiable theory. The problem with the universe being intelligently designed is not that the theory may be untrue, but that it is definitely non-falsifiable. There's no piece of evidence I can provide that will disprove God's involvement, since the constantly available retort would be that God did it. Well, maybe God did do it, but that isn't science. Also, Brownback is against a Palestinian. While I really dig his strong support for Israel, I think we have to accept the Palestinians getting some kind of permanent, regular home inside of Israeli-held territory. While I understand he's a religious guy, I think those invested in the conflict should be willing to accept some kind of compromise on the status of Jerusalem, premised on the universality of access to all religious pilgrims. otherwise, we're looking at a very long conflict there.
But Brownback talks a good game, and on the issues where he and I agree, he uses the kind of language I like, meaning he has some of the same philosophical groundings I do. A pundit would say Reaganesque, which I agree with, but it'd be more accurate to say libertarian-ish. He withdrew, citing lack of funds. Pundits at the time said it was due to Huckabee eating away his social conservative support. Whatever it was, Brownback endorsed McCain. I hope that Brownback gets some consideration for VP, because he's relatively young and has some good ideas and a very optimistic take on things.
John McCain is a very well-known contender. I voted for him back in the 2000 primaries. I like McCain because he's self-effacing and seems fairly genuinely to belief most of what he argues. He's a little too enamored of the power of government, but he is pro-immigration, pro-vouchers, and pro-free trade. I also trust him on Iraq, because I think he genuinely believes in the rightness of the cause. His energy in pursuing the surge, a policy of something like 'overwhelming force' which I personally was critical of several years ago, is probably the number one reason why we've seen so much progress in Iraq lately. I was wrong, McCain was right.
I trust him and I appreciate that he isn't pandering on immigration and cravenly cultivating voter bigotry, unease, fear and xenophobia. He's advanced in age, which is a concern, but I think he's got the stamina to go the distance.
Fred Thompson is the ideas man, even though he's an actor. He has specific, well-crafted, proposals. Fred is clearly intelligent, policy-driven and libertarian-leaning. He speaks highly of federalism, which I see as something of a proxy for his libertarian sympathies. I really appreciate that he wants to take on real problems like entitlement spending and that he's willing to treat voters like adults, rather than children.
His immigration work is less positive. Of those against immigration, he probably has the most consistent record after Tancredo, yet he's also probably the most specific in saying that his objection is to the illegal part, and avoids flirting so closely with the outright bigotry of Tancredo-ism. So, as anti-immigration rhetoric goes, I'll definitely take Fred.
His abortion policy is strange (I don't think leaving it to the states is acceptable any more than leaving lynching laws up to the states is acceptable) but I believe he's committed to the rights of the unborn which is the key part. At this point, just like the antebellum US, it's just important to get candidates and officeholders who admit to every human's right to life and liberty. The details of good policy (i.e. a human life amendment) can remain fuzzy until we work up more support around the moral cause itself.
I also like that he doesn't buy into the global warming moral panic. He just seems very rational, very sober, very no-nonsense. Fred Thompson is my first choice for the president, of the candidates in the race. He offered a number of specific, tailored conservative-libertarian policies showing that he a consistent philosophy and a sharp mind. He's in this race for the governing, not for the power. He's the adult in this race, and he's not going to stoop to hand-raising (see the childish Des Monies Register debate of last Wednesday) and he's not going to waste time politicking about insubstantial matters or private issues.
Mitt Romney seems nice and is certainly intelligent. He writes his own speeches and is fairly articulate and polished. With his emphasis on streamlining down to good government, he probably wouldn't be a horrible president. He just seems insubstantial, though. He's also incredibly craven and insulting overt in his modulating. He moves wherever he needs to go to get elected. Voters will accept changes in the direction they like, but simply changing your whole persona insults us.
It's especially troubling that he does it in such a big wa on immigration. He's clearly trying to capitalize voter insecurities with immigrants and that seriously rubs me the wrong way. Of course, it's common for candidates to do something like this with gay marriage, but the difference is that they tend to keep their gay marriage comments surprisingly restrained and that gay marriage is still trending in a generally positive direction. Immigration, meanwhile, starting to get very negative and vindictive and is trending in a very regressive direction.
Romney is a big part of that, and it disturbs me. Funnily, his obvious pandering means that I can at least believe that he truly doesn't give a damn about immigration, because he's pandering. So at least it's not a personal flaw of racism, just a flaw of pandering to mildly racist fears. In a way of course, that's worse. At least Tancredo is authentically xenophobic. Romney is a levelheaded guy giving credibility to the immigrant fears others are feeling. Nobody really points out that Romney's ancestors fled to Mexico from the US to engage in polygamy. The family stayed there for a while, so Romney is descended from Mexican immigrants (who are ethnically white and Anglo, but still). This means that Romney is descended from Mexican immigrants at a time when such movement was unlimited. Now that the number is limited, Romney wants to tighten the valve on people who want to do the same.
I still appreciate Romney simply for not being Huckabee or Rudy. For that reason, I'll consider voting for him in a tactical way, just to stop those two. I think I'll vote for Fred if he's still running Feb 5th (since I live in CA) and if he's out then I might go with McCain. If I went with Romney, it would be to block Huck and Rudy.
Ron Paul seems friendly enough and I've been a fan for years, but he's chosen to run this campaign on anti-interventionism and anti-immigrationism. He doesn't want the government to do really anything to fight the war on terror. He blames the US for the attack, even though Arab and Muslim extremists are fighting everybody everywhere, even those without a connection to the US. He also wants to repeal the citizenship guarantee of the 14th Amendment, which seems to me destined to turn this country into a stratified society with permanent minorities unable to vote or enjoy the rights of citizenship.
It also flies in the face the American tradition. He loves the American tradition and small government when it means not fighting wars for foreigners, but forgets about both when it comes to immigration and the border (which Paul said required doing no matter what it takes to do so). He is pro-life, but he's choosing to emphasize in his campaign two things I don't agree with. He's also identifying strongly with the anti-globalization strains by framing his opposition to NAFTA and WTO in a very dark, reactionary light instead of framing them in a pro-globalization way.
Ron Paul would probably do a lot of good things as President and I'd probably really like how he cut it all down to size. But a vote for him and his main statements is a vote for anti-foreigner, anti-immigrant and anti-globalization sentiments. I just don't want my vote to be seen that way.
Mike Huckabee is not 100% bad. He's friendly, witty and intelligent. He's very pro-life, which I respect, and he marched in the March For Life unlike Reagan or Bush-43 (I was lucky enough to go in 2002).
BUT. He definitely has his populist, anti-capitalist side. There are definite concerns that he's knowingly capitalizing on anti-Mormon feelings to beat Romney (Krauthammer seems to think so; I'm not making a judgment). He thinks the Club For growth should be called the Club For Greed, he has a history of loving tax hikes, hethinks the government should fight class warfare against the rich, and he has a persistent need to cluster people into financial and social stratifications and then discriminate on that basis. He's sort of a Christian socialist.
He also has his dark side. Supposedly he's thrown to fits of anger, vengeance, pettiness, vindictiveness and of course corruption. He received lots of gifts and presents, tried to claim AR state property as his own (gubernatorial furniture) and started a PAC to pay himself for giving speeches. He just sounds like something in the nature of Huey Long.
I'm not inclined to vote for him. He's a clear step backward on economic policies (even two or three steps back) and that's bad. When a Republican can't even fit within the middle of the GOP, where it's easy to be pro-capitalism, it means he's genuinely anti-capitalist. His foreign policy views, those few with any statements or definition at all, seem to be thinking that we need to act in a friendly way and conciliate to whatever Europe wants (like closing Gitmo, a policy I don't dislike but which shouldn't be done for Europe's sake). He could be a real disaster for foreign policy and for the economy.
His only saving graces, aside from his likable exterior, are being committedly pro-life and recognizing that America is a better country than to vindictively punish immigrants. He has done a little of his own pandering on the I-word, though, having won the endorsement of the Minuteman Project (the binoculars-and-lawnchair brigade of the bash-Mexicans movement).
If I voted for him, it would have to be because the Libertarians were sounding bad and Hillary was just sickening. I have to say, though, with Huckabee I think I'd just stay home.
Rudy Giuliani is a power-hungry authoritarian. His record of being a pseudo-tyrant in New York was softened by his performance after the terror attacks (my personal favorite was turning down the $10M contribution from a Saudi prince who blamed the attacks on US support for Israel - we aren't so desperate as to accept money from some anti-Semite who basically condescends to us with money while blaming us for the incident). He capped it off, though, by "offering" to stay on as Mayor for an additional three months after his final term should have ended. He forced out people working in the NYC executive branch for not following his orders and for not slavishly giving him all the credit and all the limelight, and he surrounds himself with cronies and yes-men to do his bidding. He's a clique-driven machine politician.
Aside from that, he's shamefully renouncing his pro-immigrant record in order to win the White House, and he clumsily tried to modulate his stance on abortion but not in a way that gives more than passing meaning to human life. His gun control stance is essentially unchanged, and though he presents himself as a tax-cutter he seems to have a record more of just being pro-New York. Giuliani's main belief is a personalistic politics - all about loyalties and obedience.
Rudy's government team should be loyal to him while he rewards loyalty with favors and positions regardless of experience. His role as chief executive of either NYC or the US is to be loyal to his constituency interests (naturally, as he see them). He's self-righteous, unforgiving of criticism and belligerent. His vision of government, then, is nothing so much as it is barbaric feudalism - an interconnected set of loyalties where strength and parochial aggression rule the day.
His foreign policy would probably be little more than belliegerently yelling at those who disagreed with him, and I predict he would get into a number of childish spats with foreign leaders. He just seems like a bullheaded Frenchman in this way. Like De Gaulle.
I really don't think I can bear to vote for Rudy. It would deal a huge blow to the pro-life movement, showing that Republicans can ignore the right to life yet still attain high office. It would also mean that we reward childish autocrats with yet more power. No thank you. He also doesn't seem like he'd be a very good President.
It would have to be a really bad campaign for me to consider voting for him. His only supposed point of strength, the war on terror, counts for very little since he didn't ever show up to meetings on the 9/11 commission (he was giving paid speeches) and has almost no foreign policy experience.
Duncan Hunter is really just focused on finding an enemy. He wants to fight another Cold War. Sorry, Duncan, but I'm not convinced that the Chinese are inscrutable, warmongering geniuses out to get us with their every sneaky, calculating move. Not getting my vote.
Tom Tancredo is probably one of the worst Republicans in office today, if not THE worst. His immigrant-bashing, which includes opposing most LEGAL immigration as well, borders on racism and fascism. He exhorts his audiences to 'pick up their flag' and 'defend it' as though taquerias and "marque el numero dos" are threats to America's physical existence. Tancredo seems blissfully unaware of the vowel at the end of his name. I will not vote for him.
I'm slightly proud of Americans that, though they may be in thrall to a lighter version of Tancredo-inspired moral panic over immigration, they have not fallen to supporting the man himself. He's just too crazy and frothing-at-the-mouth for most Americans; they don't overtly hate immigrants or they at least see the shame and folly in admitting to such a sentiment. I can at least take solace in his failed personal campaign, even as I bemoan the wild successes of his issues campaign.
Stem Cell Debate Irrelevant
by neolibertarian
It appears that the same scientist who gave us stem research has now found that inducing adult cells into stem cells is more effective and efficient than destroying embryos to harvest their stem cells. (see: LAT and Weekly Standard) This means that either harvesting or cloning embryos in order to destroy them is not only unnecessary, but less effective than inducing adult cells into pluripotency (the state of being able to morph into different types of cells). The scientist who started the cloning controversy by cloning Dolly, has announced that he will no longer pursue cloning embryos, and instead will advance his research with this new method.
Science has illuminated a path that can offer lifesaving cures without life-destroying treatments. This development leads me to offer three sentiments.
First, that this same process might be repeated on a different but related subject: abortion. It has been my view for some time that eventually science will allow us a path to end a woman's state of being pregnant without ending the life of the developing child. If scientists can remove a heart and implant it into a new person, then surely they can eventually figure out how to preserve the life of a fetus (and eventually an embryo) by shielding them from the outside environment long enough to get them to an incubator of some kind. In this way, women who are frightened of motherhood or too selfish to carry to term and place a baby up for adoption can be relieved of the horrible burden of pregnancy without destroying the life of another person. Of course, it's likely many women abort because they refuse to accept that they might have genetic offspring out there that somebody else adopted, but it's far harder to get a majority of Americans to accept this callous argument. So I think science will provide a solution to the abortion debate, just as it has provided an ethical solution to the stem cell controversy.
Second, I am glad the government was not entirely involved in the research process here. Aside from being slow and prone to corruption, the government makes investments determined by politics and headlines. Unless there are either headlines or regular political pressures from concerned groups, politicians have trouble maintaining focus. They run to the headlines on baseball steroids, on global warming, on whatever issue strikes our fancy, then they forget. Once they forget, the funding is very likely to dissipate. This has been repeatedly pointed out at Coyote Blog; politicians find much more benefit in building new projects than in funding existing projects. Rather than relying on the government, it was good that private efforts were involved. It was private efforts that decided that cloning embryos were both far away from any real treatments (embryonic stem cells are not used in any treatments right now, while adult stem cells are used in many) and would be exorbitantly expensive to offer (the LAT article above suggests a price of $100k per treatment). Private efforts decided to pursue better methods; if government fiat had been involved, then scientists would have pursued an unethical and less-productive avenue of research, simply to get the free dollars from the state.
Third, this new method should therefore NOT be subjected to government funding and intervention. I am sure that Republicans and conservatives will pile on to support it and show that they were not anti-science, but pro-embryo. Well, I am pro-embryo, but I'm also pro-market. The federal government and the states should keep the hell out of science. Governments like to twist science to serve their own ends (see: Nazi racial theory, Soviet Lysenko-ism, and now embryonic stem cell research). Even in this controversy, cloning of embryos was largely pursued just as a fuck-you to the pro-life movement. Cloning embryos was not a very viable path, but once conservatives and religious types voiced concerns the left pounced all over it. So the government (including states like California, which tried to fund this research itself) pushed science along a politically-determined path. But not only can science be led astray by poorly-distributed government moneys, it can also be prevented from good areas when the government decides that A) it has an interest in controlling science and B) it should prevent scientists from research areas deemed frivolous or offensive.
We should vigorously defend the freedom of science from being led astray or from being managed by the government. Even though I have no moral qualms about iPS cell research and I think it's great if it leads to wondrous new cures, I don't want the government involved. Science and markets should guide research to the best and most productive areas.
Presidential Primaries - Democrats
by neolibertarian
Well, the primary campaign is moving along now, and I'd like to set down my thoughts and impressions. I'll start with the Democrats, even though I'm not going to vote for any of them.
Hillary Clinton is the most-known candidate in both races. This makes her a big favorite of most observers to win the nomination. Democrats are running to replace her, Republicans are running to beat her.
She strikes me as having very few personal values. We usually like our politicians to have some kind of purpose or pretense for seeking power, even as we acknowledge them moderating and triangulating on many issues. With Hillary, the only issue she doesn't really back off from is abortion. She waffles and moderates on immigration, taxes, foreign policy and so on, but she doesn't mess with the third rail of left-wing politics. I can only conclude from this that Hillary's most cherished belief is that abortion should be legal and state-funded. I could have come to the conclusion that she doesn't NEED to modulate her abortion position much because the Democrats are so hopelessly supportive of abortion, but Hillary has been looking to the 2008 general election for at least eight years (maybe much longer); if she wanted to make herself more palatable to general election voters, she could voice more mixed emotions about abortion. Maybe when the general is here she will go this route, but I suspect that she holds abortion rights pretty close to the top of her list.
I can say that it ultimately feels like she just wants to win power. That's very scary from somebody who made a long record of authoritarian quotes.
When it comes to her campaign tactics, it's funny that she's running on experience as her theme. I suppose it makes sense, given that Obama and Edwards have less experience, but if we really wanted experience, we'd go for Biden, Dodd or Richardson, all of whom have lots of experience (Richardson with executive experience running Cabinet Departments and as Governor of New Mexico). But more confusingly, how can she run on experience when Hillary has been dumping her experience from the Clinton Administration? She's distancing from a lot of the major accomplishments of her husband's presidency, including NAFTA. And her experience in the Clinton White House mostly seemed to be getting yelled at for a socialist health care scheme. So if she's moving away from Bill's achievements and had none of her own, all she has to run on is being a Senator since 2000? That's her grand experience?
And we already know that she thinks she made a justifiable mistake in supporting the Iraq invasion as a Senator - even though she supported it well past the point that other Democrats were seeing it as a lost war and a point of attack.
If anything, I think her experience is being a no-holds-barred warrior from a very conflict-driven view of politics. She's too bogged down in that time and that perspective for me to be comfortable. Aside from relying heavily on supposed 'experience' of policies and achievements she either distances herself from or outright regrets, Hillary is also said to be running an incredibly controlled and closed campaign. Reporters are said to be leery of criticizing the campaign, because they calls to their houses and to their editors. At least one question, and in all likelihood many more, was planted at an open Q&A session. Hillary is way over-managed. Given the displays of aggression, paranoia and combativeness from the 1990s, I think we can assume Hillary would be a very, very divisive and arrogant president.
Of course, maybe I'm way off base or relying on insufficient. Given the speed with which many Democrats are moving to confirm her as the nominee, I hope I'm overstating her many flaws.
Barack Obama is the most interesting candidate in the race. I really like that he talks about hope and optimism, because being positive is a good way to look at the world. Negativity can lead to all sorts of undesirable actions and government policies (unrestrained fear and negativity can lead to fascism, to socialism, and to racism). I don't think a Democrat is a good vessel for optimism, though. In part because their platform naturally lends itself to either nihilism or socialism or both. Talking about the death of the middle class, the rising cost of everything, and the general crappiness of the free markets is a pervasively pessimistic view of the world and of human nature. Democrats often like to ascribe to themselves the role of idealists, but they can't stop talking about how horrible the world is, about how stupid and weak people are, and how greedy and shortsighted corporations can be.
They also get into very nihilistic areas in foreign policy and abortion. With abortion, of course, they can't acknowledge that life is meaningful and valuable without sending a message to their pro-choice and pro-abortion supporters that they aren't fully on board. So a candidate has to ignore the value of life, and in my view that tends toward a cynical, nihilistic viewpoint. Foreign policy, of course, requires Democrats to either side philosophically near Bush, or to suggest that the pain and suffering of foreign peoples is not our concern (and they call corporations selfish?). Very nihilistic.
And of course, Obama has to kowtow to the public employees unions. So he's talking about real change and optimism and taking on the special interests while he's ignoring the massive debts that parasitic government unions are putting on our states and cities.
Obama also comes off as kind of cold, arrogant and at times superior. Maybe this is just a function of my not having seen enough of him. He really does seem to simply take himself too seriously. That, I think, is exactly the problem that leads to government isolating itself above the citizenry, thus producing a great deal of public cynicism over government. If Obama can't laugh at himself or has problems seeing his own shortcomings, then how can he really can anywhere close to fixing the fundamental problems behind government? I'll have to watch for this from him in the future; there are some clear signs that Obama really is willing to be self-critical.
In the end, the Democrats are the main purveyors of the cynical, government-as-condescending-benefactor mindset that makes me so cynical. That makes it hard for me to think I can really see some fundamental changes in government from a Democrat who doesn't run against his own party.
John Edwards is really angry. It was one thing when he was peddling his class-warfare tripe with a smile on his face. Now he just comes across as angry. Sorry, nobody's that interested in electing a Marxist-lite in this country. Try pushing your us vs. them storyline in Venezuela. Americans don't really buy into that.
Bill Richardson seems to be running for Vice president, or at least that's the consensus of pundits. I tend to agree, given his defense of Hillary a month ago in her losing debate.
Joe Biden seems to be running for Secretary of State. I like that he's knowledgeable and sensible, but he really talks too much and tends to come off as arrogant after talking about how he knows so much. It almost seems like sometimes he mentions the names of conflicts, leaders and regions just to show how much he knows. That is really annoying and sort of childish. Still, his knowledge is impressive; it's nice to know that a candidate will have a lot of his own knowledge to go on when judging a situation and won't need to be briefed so comprehensively on every issue that arises.
Dennis Kucinich occasionally makes some sense to me, simply because he's so far left he's willing to be pro-immigration and anti-drug war. But he's a ridiculous person, comes off awkwardly, and is just way too socialist for my tastes. He also switched from against abortion to for it. Bah.
Chris Dodd doesn't seem like the worst candidate they have, but he sort of grates on me, as they all do. He strikes me as running a fairly conservative campaign and on precisely the issues I'd like the Democrats to be more free about. I want the Democrats to defend immigration, gays, legal drug use and a human rights-centered foreign policy. One out of four just shows that the traditional formulation of Democrats supporting social freedoms widely misses the mark.
Mike Gravel just seems desperate to win office. Desperate.
I'm not going to be able to vote for any of the Democrats, though. I wasn't really considering any of them very strongly, given that their meager social advantages over the Republicans on immigration and gay marriage are entirely mitigated by their abysmal collective views on economic issues and by the unwillingness of most to fight a real War on Terror. And, as usual, every single Democrat is pro-choice. If you can't stand up for the rights of unborn children and you can't stand up for the rights of foreigners being oppressed and slaughtered, how can you call yourself an idealist?
Taxation of Settlement Recoveries
by neolibertarian
Coyote has a post on the taxability of an insurance payout. Since the state of Arizona treats the insurance payout as a purchase, it charges sales tax on the payout amount. This is tragic and typical. The government attempts to insert itself into nearly every financial transaction.
Then he says that if he had sued the other driver in court, his settlement would not be taxable. I'm not so sure that this is the case, as I am not an attorney. What I do know is that a large number of lawsuit recoveries are considered taxable. This is especially so in suing one's employer, when the damages are often attributed in part or in their entirety to wages. So if an employee sues the employer, and wins tens of millions of dollars, they might then receive a W-2 for for a huge sum of money and have to pay income tax (either the top bracket or AMT) on those millions of dollars.
This leaves one's settlement dramatically reduced. Even more dramatically, the taxes are often due on money then paid to attorneys who argued the case. So even though a plaintiff may receive a $5 million settlement, say $2 million might go straight to attorneys and the government will also claim taxes on the whole $5 million (it will also claim taxes from the attorneys on the $2 million of their income). The biggest problem with this that I see, aside from the coercive issues of all taxes, is that the government will and most likely has already inflated the amounts in damage awards. As plaintiffs and their attorneys grow more aware of the pending tax burdens, they will demand more in their settlements to offset those anticipated costs.
If the GOP really wants to work to reduce out of control civil tort recoveries, they should stop the government's taxation of them. It was the GOP in the 1990s that dramatically increased the requirement for a recovery to be non-taxable. Due to what was argued was a loophole in the original tax code from 80 or so years ago, many damage awards were not taxable. The Congress changed this in the 90s to require a physical injury or physical sickness in order to make an award not taxable. So emotional distress damages became taxable, unless directly linked to a physical injury or physical sickness.
What Coyote reminded me of was the recent Murphy case before the DC Circuit. The case was first decided on the basis that the tax was not constitutional. After the uproar this caused, the same court panel reheard the case and found that the tax was constitutional under a different part of the Constitution. The whole ruling was inconsistent and ridiculously insulting to one's intelligence. The part that relates to Coyote is what Chief Judge Ginsberg said about Murphy's award (Murphy was a whistleblower who was suing for damage to reputation):Murphy’s situation seems akin to an involuntary conversion of assets; she was forced to surrender some part of her mental health and reputation in return for monetary damages. Cf. 26 U.S.C. § 1033 (property involuntarily converted into money is taxed to extent of gain recognized).
This is absurd. Murphy's reputation, which was damaged by the military for being a whistle-blower, was involuntarily converted on the order of property. This means Ginsberg, tossing out something of a casual observation or afterthought, says that her reputation is her property. This is a major reversal from Ginsberg's first decision, before the uproar, where he found that her award for damage to reputation could NOT be taxed.
And, speaking as a layman, it appears as though §1033 would apply to Coyote's hypothetical lawsuit. Unless he turned around and (in a timely fashion) put those damages into buying a new car or mode of transportation, in which case it would fall under §1033(A). But turning the damage into money or unlike property without converting it back into like property within a defined period or years (I think it's two years) would incur taxes. Again, though, I'm not a lawyer or an accountant.
The real problem is that the government isn't a business, needs no direct permission from the taxpayer and has an insatiable thirst for income. So anything that happens is taxable, anything that moves is taxable, anything that doesn't move but has value can be taxable. It's only through laws, regulations and constant supervision that some of these areas can be protected from taxation.
Armenian Genocide
by neolibertarian
Speaker Pelosi has recently backed off from a bill she sponsored to recognize the Armenian genocide. The likelihood that the bill would further alienate the Turks, who are US allies and hold NATO membership, was enough to get a bunch of co-sponsors to drop off the bill. I have several good reasons why the recognition of Armenian genocide is a good thing.
1) It actually happened. This is the best possible argument. The Ottoman Empire destroyed the lives of roughly a million and a half Armenians. Many countries, including NATO countries and 80% of US states, have already recognized that it happened.
2) Turkey isn't being all that ally-friendly to us right now. We each provide mutual benefits to each other, and yes, Turkey is letting us use their territory for staging related to Iraq. But when the war started up, they withheld their support and assistance. As we speak, Turkey has just authorized another military incursion into northern Iraqi Kurdistan to fight Turkish Kurd rebel groups. That's severely destabilizing to us (though granted, they are having a tough fight and letting the Kurds cross that bordfer unmolested was not sustainable). Turkey has also been abusive to its Kurdish population for quite some time and is a major obstacle to letting the Kurds finally establish an independent state. The US has been nice to Turkey since Ataturk - Kurdistan was at the last minute rejected for statehood under the Fourteen Points in deference to Turkey. We defended Turkey against Soviet aggression at a time when, to be honest, they probably needed us more than we needed them. If all that goodwill still hasn't given us a more loyal ally, why should we continue to overlook crimes committed by their predecessor government?
3) Ignorance is dangerous. Ignorance of genocidal history is lethal. We should continue to acknowledge past crimes and transgressions committed by governments so that everyone can remember that they happen and be more vigilant in the future.
My proposal would be that the Congress, rather than simply passing a resolution, start an investigative commission to look into the matter. Getting historians and the like to compile the evidence, examine the counter-arguments and (where possible) record first- and second-hand witness testimony is FAR more valuable than a simple Sense of the House or Sense of the Senate resolution.
A commission's report would put the actual evidence on the record. It could be published and sold in bookstores. It would provide a basis for further examination and discussion, most especially on the ideological, social and political foreshadowing of the genocide itself.
Additionally, I would provide opportunity for scholars to refute or scale down specific accusations while on the panel. Letting pro-Ottoman perspectives in shows that the commission would not simply be a kangaroo court. Moreover, mis-stated and overstated claims of genocide are harmful to the cause of remembrance; people prone to conspiracy theories often find one or two facts that may have been inflated or added without sufficient evidence, and use them as strawmen to take down the whole affair. So multiple perspectives (even from apologists for the mass murder 1.5 million people) can help form a far stronger report in the end.
California has a large Armenian-American population - the largest of any US State (e.g. the population of Glendale, CA was over 1/4 Armenian-descended in the 2000 Census). I'm sure that Pelosi's move was justifiably started by pressure from that community. I can hardly blame them any more than we would blame Jews for being interested in recognition of the Holocaust. Now she's backing down, which frankly makes her look stupid, weak, foolhardy and a real novie at foreign policy. It would've been extremely easy to just get a little conference with somebody at State (even Condi or Bush) and find out what the official US position is on Armenia. Instead, Pelosi went in obviously without properly preparing for the issue.
This is hardly the first time I've hard of the issue, but I'm very glad it came up in such a public way. I'm convinced that Americans need to recognize the Armenian genocide happened, if not through Congress then at least personally.
If the Turks have a problem with us recognizing a war crime committed by an entirely different government (one that was so ineffective they overthrew it) and by people who are no longer living, we shouldn't apologize to them. It's the victims and their families that should receive our condolences.
San Francisco Hates Competition
by neolibertarian
Coyote referenced the SF anti-chain ordinance that punishes chains (I think a chain is defined as having 10 or more national locations) when they try to build in the city. He correctly points out that it should be considered unconstitutional and that it's anti-wealth and anti-consumer. Of course, this town is just crazy.
Case in point, there was a local movement to stop a Starbucks from moving into the Richmond district on Geary Blvd. The movement gathered petition signatures and just last week was successful in stopping the big bad chain from offering a popular product in a City that has Starbucks EVERYWHERE. There are probably a dozen Starbucks locations within six blocks of my office downtown, plus tons of Peet's Coffee locations.
But aside from the silliness of blocking a chain coffee store in a town that loves chain coffee stores is the absurd reasoning they used to block the change. The activists wanted to preserve the community, but the Starbucks was going into a freaking Toyota service center. Is that really the San Francisco feel that everybody craves? Just more silliness.
While keeping out chain stores is absurd and unfree, it gets a lot more press than San Francisco's housing regulations. The housing regulations, though, are far more damaging. They require a certain percentage of units be below-market and the rest can be 'market rate.' The result is that the market rate housing goes up because the investors need to draw on the regular units to afford the cheap units. Some activists want to require that a majority on units in new housing developments be 'below-market,' maybe even a two to one ratio. This kind of socialist price control never bodes well and always ill effects. The same people here complain about building large high-rises and want everybody to live in the City and walk or ride a bikes. They actually oppose new parking spaces! Crazy freaking town.
If they really want to live up to their environmental ideals and have fewer people drive then they should make it easier to live in the city by stopping their price-increasing socialist policies and allow more units to develop.
Or, better yet, stop worrying whether a Toyota Service Center will have chain coffee and worry more about why the murder rate is so high.
Update: I posted a comment on Coyote's thread.
Living in the area, I have to say that San Francisco is a truly beautiful place, especially as viewed from across the bay. But driving around it can be pretty inconvenient, parking is often a nightmare even for residents, and trying to find a drive-thru or a public restroom can be hell.
The reasoning behind all the crazy and stupid laws is always either xenophobic (we're special and better than other places) or enviro-fascist (cars are evil and people driving them need to be assaulted and threatened with bikes, like Critical Mass).
I think that the crazy, natural process of building housing is what made SF beautiful and interesting. Artificially engineering that look is, to me, like distressing or antiquing a piece of furniture. Sure, that false-distressed look makes it fashionable, but it's just fake. If you really want SF or any place to look interesting then repeal zoning laws. Let people build Second Empire monstrosities next to Art Deco apartments next to whatever. That would give the place tons of character, plus it would be free and constitutional.
The one addition I would make is that the views should be commoditized. The view of the water is both very valuable and very contentious. By allowing people to own the views we could reflect the fact that a Pacific Heights house was purchased in part for the view. I don't know how to go about implementing it, but it seems like the best way to deal with the conflict over how high buildings by the bay can be.
Statehood: Form or Function
by neolibertarian
California is a big state. It's incredibly diverse and enormous among the states - the largest population, the most agriculture, the biggest economy, etc. It's also very unwieldy and closed in its politics.
Term limits make state legislature races very expensive, with contested races often topping a million or several million spent on each side. Term limits and districting make the parties quite powerful. Special interests in California, mostly the public employee unions, are incredibly powerful.
It's also just hard to cram tens of millions of people into one state, a form of government designed for a far smaller number of people. When the US was formed, the free population of most states was measured in the hundreds of thousands. While it's hard to say there's any perfect ratio, and certainly technology has decreased the difficulty of have large state populations, smaller states would be more representative and responsive.
California could be better off in many ways as two states or maybe more. Maybe a neat line between north and south would be simplest; the San Luis Obispo-Kern-San Bernardino county lines form almost a straight border across. CalVoter identifies eleven regions within California. I'm not expecting divisions to happen; people are too attached to the forms of states, and not to the functions.
Why is there any special legitimacy to the particular borders or branches of a given state? We simply grow attached and forget that governments exists for higher reasons, not for themselves.
If we were to stop valuing states for their own sake and simply value them for the good they can possibly provide, we'd see that they need some serious reform. California, for example, has only 80 Assembly members and 40 State Senators to represent over 36 million people. The number of Assembly members hasn't been changed in a century, when the state looked very different (most of the population was in SF, and it was a much smaller total). Just as having more states to represent California's population would be a net positive in terms of voter efficacy, increasing the number of California state legislators would make government more responsive to the people here.
It would probably be useful if state borders and government forms were reorganized periodically as a rule. Whenever an organization lasts too long, it becomes protected in its own right. This is true of almost any institution. This is why the Catholic Church acted to protect its institutional reputation instead of protecting the young children its priests were molesting. It's why the Army protected its institutional reputation and portrayed Pat Tillman as a dead hero killed by the Taliban instead of admitting that he was killed in a friendly fire incident even after identifying himself. Attachments to institutions should never exceed or override attachments to ethics and principles.
Hacked Voting
by neolibertarian
California's Secretary of State, Debra Bowen, prohibited electronic voting machines from being used in this state's elections, absent some changes to security. She ran more or less on a platform of opposing Diebold and other voting-machine producers. The machines were banned from being used by the counties because they could be 'hacked' and altered. Of course, this is true of a lot of voting methods, but I digress.
This scenario - which will cost time and energy for the counties to scramble to find reliable, tested and countable voting methods in six months for the ridiculously-early CA primary coming up - got me thinking about the best way to vote.
1. People should use computers to make their selection on issues. Touch-screens would probably be the simplest for people to use. In this way, they could clearly make selections, review their votes before finalizing, and then print out the ballots.
2. Security protocol would be important, requiring you to put in a voter ID number, ensuring that somebody is registered and that one voter can't vote more than once. The voter ID number would not be reflected on your ballot. The voting machine would assign a random number to your ballot, protecting your identity.
3. After voting, two copies would print out. You could review your ballot, and it would clearly say how you voted on every race and issue. After either folding the ballot or putting it into a sleeve (for privacy), take the ballots over to the election officials.
4. They'll scan one of the copies by bar code, automatically tallying it. Then that copy would get put into a ballot box and be available as a hard copy for future counting. At this point, they will also electronically enter your voter ID number in a different database, showing that you already voted.
5. You sign the other ballot copy and the election official witnesses (maybe even notarizes, the specifics are flexible). This shows that you cast that ballot. This part will become relevant later, potentially.
6. The voting would be tallied by the time polls close (which, to my mind, should be from very early am to very late pm, maybe lasting two days or even a week, but that's another issue) because it would've been scanned right when you voted. This would eliminate a lot of the waiting and confusion that surrounds the election.
7. Your vote would be viewable online, but not connected to your name. That random number assigned to each person's ballot would be the way to find how your vote was counted. Your privacy would be intact, keeping it a secret ballot, but you'd be able to see that your vote was counted accurately. If your vote doesn't show up or shows up with the wrong votes, then you'd be able to go through some steps to report the error and correct it. The signed and witnessed ballot receipt would allow you to correct how your vote was counted. You wouldn't be able to retroactively change your vote, but you could make sure it was correctly counted.
The biggest flaw with vote counting is that you can't know if your vote counted. Except in open-ballot or very small secret-ballot elections, you don't know that your vote was counted accurately. A mistake in filling it out can be fixed with computer-printed ballots. A mistake in counting can be fixed with online double-check systems.
Or we could somehow pretend that only electronic votes can be hacked by subterfuge. I guess Debra Bowen has never heard of Chicago or Richard Daley.
Resumption of Blogging
by neolibertarian
Apologies to all for my unannounced blogging hiatus. It started out as a combination of working on several huge projects and spending more time on work. Then it turned into deference for my job hunt. Now it's been for my apartment search. I'm happy to say I found an assistant job with a law firm in San Francisco, a small tax boutique firm with international credits. I'll be in a utility position in the office, doing half administrative tasks (billing, for example) and half legal tasks (article proofreading, for example) so it should be a lot of fun. I'm moving to an apartment in the close-in North Bay area, so the adjustment will still be a little while.
I need to blog to help work out the stuff that's cluttering my head. One of the upcoming things on my blog agenda is a statistical analysis of Swiss politics and the last Swiss election. Switzerland has very fractured politics, making generalizations very difficult. But the spread of parties was fun so I wanted to do it. In the process I managed to learn about their elections. I'll start prepping that for posting but my move schedule will keep me busy for at least a week or two.
Until then, I need to rant on some of the recent news subjects and things rattling through my brain.
