Reason Saves Cleveland

Fantastic video. It's astounding to compare Houston and Cleveland and see the way government can completely suffocate opportunity and prosperity.

M.I.A.

Wow. Over a month since my last post. This is largely due to a more hectic work schedule and the intervention of other commitments that monopolize all the time I used to spend writing...um...to myself.

I shall return! (The mirror: "Well, I certainly hope so. If this blog goes away, where else can I witness someone publicly talking to themselves without feeling obliged to buy them a sandwich.")

Libertarians and Conservatives on Immigration

This is an interesting video. I think it illustrates nicely the tension between Libertarians and Conservatives with regard to the controversy surrounding the Arizona immigration law. Generally, Libertarians are more concerned than Conservatives about granting law enforcement the authority to demand a citizen's "papers" on threat of detention. (Although it should be noted that the federal government has had this authority for 60 years. The Arizona law only grants state government the authority to enforce it.)



Conservatives realize that there are necessary limits to the libertarian desire to get government out of every area of our lives. Libertarianism is like Socialism and Communism in this way: It has merits only as a guiding philosophy; only a lunatic would try to implement it as a practical form of government. If individual liberty were not subjected to the rule of law, the result would be a society completely at odds with genuine freedom.

Conservatives value individual liberty as highly as Libertarians do, but conservatives also acknowledge the necessity of the "social contract." We understand that if individuals wish to remain truly free they must be willing to cede a measure of their freedom to their fellow man, in exchange for his willingness to give up a measure of his freedom in return. G.K. Chesterton put it this way: "The liberty to make laws is what constitutes a free people."

Of course, very few Americans - libertarian or conservative - would ever question the necessity of the rule of law. Instead, we squabble over the appropriate scope of the law. But the Libertarian argument falls flat particularly with regard to immigration.

Protecting the borders is one of the few legitimate justifications for the centralization of political power. A "nation" is defined by its borders - by which I mean that a nation without borders is not a nation in any meaningful sense. Governments - and especially the American constitutional republic - have only a very few affirmative obligations to the citizenry. Providing for the common defense and defending the national borders are among those obligations.

Does it violate a lawful citizen's liberty to be stopped, detained, and questioned about their citizenship status? Absolutely. Is that a bad thing? Absolutely. There are strong arguments against such government intrusion. But the argument for limiting individual liberty in order to enforce a state border is significantly stronger than arguments for most other limitations.

The citizens of Arizona have chosen to sacrifice a measure of their liberty because they believe the harm being caused by illegal immigration in Arizona justifies the limitation. That is a legitimate expression of the public's willingness to be subjected to the rule of law. It's something that all of us should be able to respect.

Defending the Cross

Is it disturbing to anyone else that the Supreme Court has to rule on the legality of a cross?

So the free exercise of religion means that people are free to exercise their religion, even if it overlaps a governmental function. It's simply amazing that this was ever in doubt in a country that claims to be "free."

The Last Word on Arizona

Bravo, Mr. McCarthy. Bravo.

*****
"A government that abdicates our national defense against outside forces is no longer a government worth having.

"In adopting the Constitution, in giving their consent to our social contract, the sovereign states agreed to cede some of their authority in exchange for one overriding benefit. It was not to have an overseer to monitor our salt intake, design our light bulbs, prepare for our retirement, manage our medical treatments, or mandate our purchases. It was to provide for our security. It was to repel invasion by aliens who challenged our sovereign authority to set the conditions of their presence on our soil.

"For that reason, border security has always been the highest prerogative of sovereignty. Immune from judicial interference, it answers to no warrant requirement. At the border, the federal government does not need probable cause — or any cause at all — to inquire into a person’s citizenship, immigration status, or purpose for attempting to enter our country. Agents can detain immigrants and citizens alike. They can perform bodily searches. They can go through every inch of a would-be entrant’s belongings, read his mail, and scrutinize the contents of his computer. A person subjected to this treatment may find it degrading or unfair, but the courts have nothing to say about it. At stake, after all, is the irreducible core of a sovereign people’s power to protect themselves from intruders.

"At the southern border, however, the federal government has forfeited its power. As a result, Arizonans are imperiled by Mexico’s brutally violent warring factions. They are crushed economically as the magnet effect of our unsustainable welfare state falls disproportionately on their schools, hospitals, jails, and pocketbooks, to the tune of nearly $2 billion per year.

"Arizona is a sovereign state. Its citizens have a natural right to defend themselves, particularly when the federal government surrenders. The state’s new law does precisely that, in a measured way that comes nowhere close to invoking the necessary, draconian powers Leviathan has but refuses to use.

"Demagogues are smearing Arizona’s immigration law as “racial profiling” because it endorses police inquiries into the validity of a person’s presence in the United States. The claim could not be more specious. The law does not give police any new basis to stop and detain someone. Police may not inquire into immigration status unless they have a “lawful” basis for stopping the person in the first place. And even then, the police officer must have “reasonable suspicion” before attempting to determine whether the person is lawfully present. And that suspicion must be generated by something beyond race and ethnicity — as Byron York notes, the law expressly says these may not be the sole factors.

"The law is clearly constitutional. Yet the Obama administration, having buried unconsenting Americans under avalanches of debt and inscrutable, unconstitutional mega-statutes, is mulling a court challenge, casting its lot with lawless aliens against besieged Arizonans.

"A government destructive of our citizens’ basic rights to know, to determine, and to have the protection of the law cannot endure. This one will not. The only question is how much more damage we will allow it to do."

— Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at the National Review Institute and the author of Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad (Encounter Books, 2008).

More on Arizona

People who think it violates some fundamental human right to be asked for government issued identification really need to stop and think about that for a second before saying it out loud.

Think about - oh, I don't know - the last time you:

got on an airplane
got pulled over by a policeman
ordered a drink
purchased anything
applied for a job
traveled to another country
purchased anything
voted...oh wait, no ID required for that anymore, at least in Chicago
purchased anything
purchased anything

Think about those situations, then stop making idiotic arguments implying that other, more thoughtful people are actually racists.

The Arizona Immigration Law

I've heard some different claims about the new Arizona Immigration law, specifically turning on whether police can inquire into a person's citizenship status during a casual encounter not related to the investigation of another illegal act. That question (how it will be enforced) is the only conceivably controversial thing about the Arizona law, since it otherwise conforms exactly to current federal law (which is not enforced at all).

Linda Chavez, a conservative that I respect very much, claims that the law gives police the ability to approach any person who "looks Mexican," ask about their citizenship status, and detain them if they can't provide documentation. That seemed troubling to me, because while a person in a country illegally certainly has no right to expect to be left alone by law enforcement, a citizen of that country should be free from intrusive law enforcement actions.

After doing some research, I have come to the conclusion that Ms. Chavez, while I understand her concern, is wrong about the meaning of the law itself. The clearest and most succinct articulation I've found to correct her misconception is this post by Andy McCarthy at NRO, which also cites an excellent article by Byron York. The law itself does not countenance racial profiling. In fact, it rejects that approach both implicitly (through carefully crafted legal language) and explicitly (by clearly excluding the use of racial profiling). The only legitimate claim against this law is that individual police officers may enforce it incorrectly, and in doing so violate the civil liberties of American citizens. That concerns me, but it's an argument that can be made against any law.

McCarthy's final conclusion is this: "The people who are complaining about this law almost certainly either have not read it or are demagogues who would make the same absurd claims no matter what they law said." I think there's a third possibility that applies to Ms. Chavez. Some people who misinterpret the bill probably do so because, despite their intelligence, they are not lawyers or law enforcement officials trained to interpret and implement legal language.

Everyone can understand "racial profiling," but not everyone understands the actual legal concept of "reasonable suspicion." Those who don't should take care when commenting, especially if they intend to cast aspersions on the moral qualities of the bill's proponents and supporters.

*****
UPDATE:
Linda Chavez has responded to Andy McCarthy. Her argument is basically that the wording of the bill itself is confusing and leaves open the possibility that it will be misapplied in violation of citizens' liberties.

I think this proves my point above. The text is only confusing or uncertain for people who aren't career criminal lawyers or law enforcement agents - i.e. the people who will actually be enforcing the law. And yes, the law can be misapplied. Every law can be abused or misapplied by law enforcement professionals. That's the weakness of any legal code, but it's a weakness that we accept in exchange for the benefits that come with writing laws down. The people of Arizona clearly thought a written state law that might be misunderstood or slightly abused was still better than the status quo - federal law that isn't enforced at all.

Also, her point that immigration has been going down in recent years is a little strange. Immigration has been going down because our economy has been tanking. That would be a justification for inaction on the immigration front only if we fully expect the economy to never recover. If, on the other had, we do expect the economy to recover, wouldn't now be a good time to make some big changes to our immigration policies?

Is it a better idea to fix a faucet when it's dripping or when it's gushing?

Incivility

How interesting.

I wonder...if a group of Tea Partiers vandalized a government building with swastikas or got into an argument with a counter-protester, a "small riot" ensued, the counter-protester had to be escorted away by police who "feared for his safety", and one of the people assaulting him was arrested...don't you think it would have been a national news story?

Isn't the clear lesson of these events that people who oppose Arizona's immigration law are dangerous, violent extremists? Can there be any doubt that their fanatical actions can be blamed on irresponsible voices in the media that foster ignorance and intolerance for others with differing perspectives? Before you answer, understand that disagreement will be interpreted as evidence of your own irrationality and, most likely, thinly-veiled racism.

Seriously, though. Does no one on the Left ever wonder why the rampant incivility and legitimately documented violence by people on their side is simply not reported? Or, at the very least, do they note that such behavior is not cited by the media as evidence of the Left's prominent role in the deterioration of public discourse?

Consider:
What is being portrayed as the "cause" of the unrest in Arizona? The strong Arizona immigration bill, of course.

But what was portrayed as the "cause" of the unrest surrounding the health-care debate? The massively unpopular health-care bill itself? No, no. The Tea Party, talk radio, etc.

Sigh...

Just to clarify, the offensive thing here is not the behavior of activists on the Left. That's fine, even if I wish it were a little less strident. The offensive thing is the inconsistent treatment of activists on different ends of the political spectrum by the national media. The bias is disgusting, and is slowly pushing the dinosaur media into total public irrelevance.

Can we please put an end to all this nonsense implying that an engaged and emotionally-charged public somehow threatens civil society?

SHOCKER: Obamacare Will Cost More Than Advertised

Get ready for a study in dishonest government. Clearly, no educated person thought Obamacare would reduce health-care costs, but that's exactly how it was sold - or rather, attempted to be sold to a public that didn't buy it in the end (but got it anyway). Now we'll watch as the Obama administration does what liberal social engineers always do: redefine the stated goal of the legislation to make it fit the actual outcome.

Mark my words: Now that the Health and Human Services department has confirmed what everyone already knew, we'll hear nothing from the Left but claims that the health-care overhaul is a huge success because it is going to cover millions more Americans.

They will completely ignore the fact that this bill was sold as a cost-control measure, and pretend that the case for it had rested on its ability to cover more people - a fact that no one argued, but its opponents (i.e. the American people) insisted didn't justify the expected costs.

"Pass the bill to find out what's in it." Indeed.

Ugh. Is it November yet?

It Continues...

Well, I really should rename my blog "A Smoochy, Smoochy Love Letter to Jonah Goldberg." It's getting a bit ridiculous, but it cannot be avoided.

This article in Commentary Magazine is probably the most important analysis of the Obama administration's ideological orientation that I've seen. I think it does several important things:

1. It exposes the disingenuous effort to marginalize as thoughtless reactionaries those conservatives who use the term "socialist" to describe Obama's policies. Leftists, who generally have a favorable view of those Western European and Scandinavian nations that describe themselves as "socialist," dissonantly assume that when conservatives describe Obama as a "socialist" they mean something very different and intensely sinister. But when conservatives say they don't want socialism, they don't mean they're afraid that Bolshevism is in our future. They're afraid that the British Labour Party is in our future. That, not soviet-style statism, is the immediate concern. It's just dishonest to brand conservatives as crazies who think Obama is a Manchurian Candidate counting the minutes until he can install himself as dictator-for-life.

2. It clearly distinguishes this brand of socialism from the straw-man socialism conjured by the Left. It is less a nebulous controlling ideology and more a practical necessity for societies pursuing "social justice." Goldberg explains: "It is an orientation, a way of thinking about politics and governance—it is oriented toward government control but is not monomaniacally committed to it as the be-all and end-all. Social-ism is about what activists call “social justice,” which is always “progressive” and egalitarian but not invariably statist."

3. It shows how the this brand of socialism permits all criticisms of its failings to be deflected away from the expansive state and back onto majoritarian systems and free markets. Goldberg explains: "The political virtue of Fabianism is that since “socialism” is always around the corner and has never been fully implemented, it can never be held to blame for the failings of the statist policies that have already been enacted. The cure is always more incremental socialism. And the disease is, always and forever, laissez-faire capitalism. That is why George W. Bush’s tenure is routinely described by Democrats as a period of unfettered capitalism and “market fundamentalism,” even as the size and scope of government massively expanded under Bush’s watch while corporate tax rates remained high and Wall Street was more, not less, regulated.

4. Finally, it puts a distinctive and useful name to the administration's unique brand of progressivism/Fabianism/social democracy - Neosocialism.

Kindred Hearts

Goldberg has been channeling G.K. Chesterton lately, which makes me even more certain that Goldberg is a long-lost uncle of mine. Compare the excerpt below to this quote of Chesterton's:

Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists.
- G.K.C., The Uses of Diversity

*****
Capitalism vs. Capitalists
Jonah Goldberg
Friday, April 23, 2010

Five years ago this week, my former boss William F. Buckley started a column thusly:

"Every ten years I quote the same adage from the late Austrian analyst Willi Schlamm, and I hope that ten years from now someone will remember to quote it in my memory. It goes, 'The trouble with socialism is socialism. The trouble with capitalism is capitalists.'"
...
Schlamm's point is still relevant, even though the kind of socialism we're dealing with is less doctrinaire. But it also distorts the issue somewhat. One might just as easily say that the problem with socialism is capitalists, too.

If by "capitalist" you mean someone who cares more about his own profit than yours; if you mean someone who cares more about providing for his family than providing for yours; if you mean someone who trusts that he is a better caretaker of his own interests and desires than a bureaucrat he's never met, often in a city he's never been to: then we are all capitalists. Because, by that standard, capitalism isn't some far-off theory about the allocation of capital; it is a commonsense description of what motivates pretty much all human beings everywhere.
...
The problem with socialism is socialism, because there are no socialists. Socialism is a system based upon an assumption about human nature that simply isn't true. I can design a perfect canine community in which dogs never chase squirrels or groom their nether regions in an indelicate manner. But the moment I take that idea from the drawing board to the real world, I will discover that I cannot get dogs to behave against their nature -- at least not without inflicting a terrible amount of punishment. Likewise, it's easy to design a society that rewards each according to his need instead of his ability. The hard part is getting the crooked timber of humanity to yield to your vision.

And it's also why the problem with capitalism is capitalists. Some people will always abuse the system and take things too far. Some will do it out of the hubris of intellect. Some will do it out of the venality of greed.

I bring all of this up because many in Washington seem convinced that the solution to the problem with capitalists is always less capitalism. To be sure, a free market society is in some sense a government program. The government must prosecute criminality, enforce contracts and demand that the rules are observed. Few lovers of free markets are so laissez-faire as to want to strip the government of its role as referee.

But few should want the ref to suit up and play the game.
...
We are fond of saying that the answer to free-speech problems is more free speech. But we seem incapable of grasping that sometimes -- and only sometimes -- the solution to capitalism's problems is more capitalism.

Not So Wonderful?

I think this is a great little illustration of how American perceptions of capitalism have become warped over the years.

One of the most beloved and sympathetic characters in the history of American Film is George Bailey from It's a Wonderful Life. Jimmy Stewart masterfully portrays the young idealistic man who sacrifices his own dreams out of a sense of obligation to his family and his community, becoming a jaded and bitter man in the process. Of course, George's outlook changes when Clarence, an angel, shows George that a world bereft of all of his sacrifice would be a terrible, terrible place.

Can you remember what George's role was in the community? Can you remember what he did that put him in a position to help so many people and improve so many lives?

Minister?  Teacher?  Mayor?

No.

He was a banker.

h/t Michael Medved via John Stossel

The Bush Backlash

Speaking of George W. Bush...

Jonah Goldberg points out one aspect of the Tea Parties that is being entirely ignored by media accounts.  They are unflinchingly critical of many of the Bush administration's domestic policies.  In fact, the Tea Partiers are, dare I say, nuanced in their approach to George W. Bush.  They largely applaud his foreign policy decisions and have a great appreciation for the man himself, but they do not shrink from loudly railing against his domestic agenda - particularly near the end of his 2nd term.

This paragraph sums it up well:

For instance, when Bush’s face appeared on the Jumbotron in the arena, the Cincinnati audience applauded. When speakers criticized Bush and the GOP for “losing their way,” the audience applauded even louder.

Ahhh...Memories

Jay Nordlinger posted a reminder of this wonderful expression of Americanism.  I think that George W. Bush, despite all the mockery he endured during his presidency,  will be remembered as one of the most eloquent defenders of human freedom in all of history.

The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world. . . .

We will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and every nation: the moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right. America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains, or that women welcome humiliation and servitude, or that any human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies. . . .

We do not accept the existence of permanent tyranny because we do not accept the possibility of permanent slavery. . . .

All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: The United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you. Democratic reformers facing repression, prison, or exile can know: America sees you for who you are: the future leaders of your free country.

- George W. Bush
(from his 2nd Inaugural Address)

Why the Healthcare Debate Really Matters

I realize that the average American's eyes will cross at the mention of constitutional issues surrounding the individual health insurance mandate.  The subject matter is not exactly riveting.  But I think people would be much more interested if they were being accurately told exactly what is at stake.

The Supreme Court's decision on this debate will determine how much control the Federal government has over private economic decisions for generations to come.  There are people who say, "Look, I know the constitution tries to make sure government doesn't get too much power and make people's lives worse.  But when we're trying to do something good for others, morality requires that we find a way around it."  People who think like this, despite their best intentions, are enemies of freedom and prosperity.  They would have a society of men, not of laws.  They, in their simplicity, would take us down the road to serfdom. 

For example, our President has said that he would prefer that courts "break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution...that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties - says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to you, but doesn't say what the federal government or state government must do on your behalf."

The President seemed to think that this vital structural feature of U.S. government is a flaw, rather than the source of all our freedom and national prosperity.  That is shocking.  He disingenuously argues that such an arrangement is not inherent it the Constitution itself, but has been imposed on it over the years by judges and constitutional scholars apparently less knowledgeable or enlightened than he.

When the talk radio hosts rant about these sorts of statements from the President, they are absolutely right.  This is nothing less than a radical re-imagining of the structure of the American system of government.  I pray that the Court has the honesty to call it what it is, and reject it.  Because if the Court is willing to legislate out of the Constitution any meaningful restraints on Federal power, not even the repeal of this particular bill can undo the damage.

The die will be cast.