Category: Government

Supervised peril beats unsupervised peril

USA Today has an interesting, if not surprising, story on teen driving fatalities between 3pm and 5pm on weekdays. I say not surprising because teens are getting out of school at that time and don’t have much driving experience. Sometimes, statistics simply present the obvious. However, the story contains one useful quote that I think is much more universal than in the exclusive context of teen driving. It comes from a mother whose son died in a traffic accident in 1999.

[Kathryn] Orosz says she had such rules for her son: “I had Michael sign a contract that he would not have his friends in the car, he would not drive after dark.”

In the end, though, the rules were not enough. “Parents need to not just say this,” she says. “They need to get in the car and drive with the kids, monitor them. You don’t want to just throw them in a car. You need to be teaching them. They need … to gain experience.”

She offers sound advice for driving, but it could just as easily be applied to drinking, for example. We believe in a training period for driving, which clearly involves a risk of negative externalities on society, but abstinence is the only allegedly justifiable policy for drinking. Why? Drinking problems for teens and young adults (including those barely 21) can involve those same negatives, but more likely the impact will be on the individual only. Is the risk to society greater for an inexperienced teen driver to hurl 2,000 pounds of automobile down the road or for him to pound 13 beers in an evening? The answer is clear and it should inform public policy more than any moral aversion to free choice/fun/whatever that drives anti-alcohol hysteria.

Wanting to do and Doing are not the same

It’s now obvious that the Republican strategy over the next two weeks will be to hammer away at the supposed fringe liberal agenda Speaker Pelosi would force upon America. It’s an amusing narrative, if only because what it ignores – the benefit of divided government – is so painfully obvious. We’re not changing the president in this election, and I don’t even buy the promise of impeachment proceedings. That leaves a Republican president to veto any and every fringe bill that comes from Congress. That assumes the Democrats gain both houses. If not, the “dangers” of a Democratic Congress never arrive on the president’s desk. This fear is overblown.

Not surprisingly, more of this appeared in yesterday’s Opinion Journal. It’s a valiant effort, I suppose, except it ignores the last half-decade and pretends that we don’t remember it. Among many hilarious bits of nonsense:

Second, President Bush will not be able to re-energize his effort for individually owned Social Security accounts, for “preventing the privatization of social security” is in the Democratic National Committee’s “6-Point Plan for 2006.” Democrats don’t trust people to own or invest their own retirement funds–better to let a wise government do that, for as socialist Noam Chomsky says, “putting people in charge of their own assets breaks down the solidarity that comes from doing something together.” And since Congress gets to spend Social Security tax receipts that aren’t needed to pay benefits, letting people invest their payments in their own retirement accounts would be a costly revenue reduction that the new, bigger-spending Congress won’t allow to happen.

Privatizing Social Security is necessary. The longer we wait, the worse the pain when we finally fix it. I get it. But provide me one example of how the current Republican Congress fought for privatization. Show me evidence that President Bush didn’t pack up his reform agenda (saving his political capital for other expenditures?) at the first hint of resistance from the Republican Congress. And, no, quoting Noam Chomsky’s stupidity isn’t proof.

I don’t like the idea of Democrats in power, but I despise the reality of Republicans in power. A few years out of power won’t hurt any more than what we’re suffering now. Maybe I’m wrong, but shouting “they suck more” won’t convince me.

Should we prosecute those who say “Boo!”?

I didn’t comment on last week’s story about the Wisconsin man who posted bogus warnings about terrorist attacks on NFL stadiums because I didn’t care enough to ramble about the obvious. But this quote in conjunction with the story amused frustrated me:

“These types of hoaxes scare innocent people, cost business resources and waste valuable homeland security resources. We cannot tolerate this Internet version of yelling fire in a crowded theater in the post-9/11 era,” said U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie in Newark, N.J., where Brahm was charged in a sealed complaint filed Thursday. One of the stadiums mentioned was Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.

Kudos to Mr. Christie for working in a bogus use of September 11th to explain law enforcement action. (And for reciting the time-worntested example of yelling fire in a crowded theater.) But this recitation of the “post-9/11” talking point is only useful if we can reasonably assume that, pre-9/11, we would’ve ignored what we’re now prosecuting. Maybe we should just regulate The Internets, since we’re in the post-9/11 era. For the innocent people. The children, especially.

Ice Cream Man!!!!

I wonder if administration officials camped out at the U.S. District court to deliver this message, the way college kids camp out for tickets to the biggest game of the year?

Moving quickly to implement the bill signed by President Bush this week that authorizes military trials of enemy combatants, the administration has formally notified the U.S. District Court here that it no longer has jurisdiction to consider hundreds of habeas corpus petitions filed by inmates at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.

In a notice dated Wednesday, the Justice Department listed 196 pending habeas cases, some of which cover groups of detainees. The new Military Commissions Act (MCA), it said, provides that “no court, justice, or judge” can consider those petitions or other actions related to treatment or imprisonment filed by anyone designated as an enemy combatant, now or in the future.

Beyond those already imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay or elsewhere, the law applies to all non-U.S. citizens, including permanent U.S. residents.

That would cause whiplash if it wasn’t so unsurprising. That sort of reminds me of this routine by Eddie Murphy:

Any guesses as to which character President Bush is? And let’s not forget what happens to his ice cream in the end.

Traditional marriage would decrease marriage

La Shawn Barber has an entry today about outing closeted public officials. It’s a topic worth considering, but a passage in the middle caught my attention.

… When I say I don’t care who people sleep with, I mean it…as long as it’s not in my face. Keep your business to yourself, and don’t define yourself by or try to turn your bedroom activities into a political cause. But that is what the homosexual agenda is about. Two to three percent of the population, people whose sexual orientation got mixed up somehow — genetically, environmentally, or how ever — want to flip the culture upside, demand special rights, and tell the rest of us how to think. It won’t work with me.

I read Ms. Barber’s blog because she’s intelligent and I agree with almost nothing she writes. Reading opposing views helps me flesh out my ideas and beliefs. I don’t see this issue as gay Americans fighting for special rights based on their sexual orientation. They are asking for the equal recognition of their rights by our government. It’s that simple. If they’re right, and I think they are, it doesn’t matter if that flips the culture upside, causes a few minor blips, or results in a collective yawn. Rights are inherent, not granted by the majority (telling the minority how to think).

More to the point, turn your bedroom activities into a political cause is not exclusive to gays within the realm of marriage. With accusations that gays have done that by asking for their right to marry, supporters of “traditional” marriage have turned their (heterosexual) bedroom activities into a political cause. Just yesterday, I posted a quote from a gentleman who claimed that marriage is about procreation. If that’s truly the case as it surely must be with a push for “traditional” marriage, then the freedom that heterosexuals maintain to marry anyone they please is unjustifiably broad. If this is the legitimate standard, we must begin reducing the right to marry to those who may create children. No one else would hold the right to state-sanctioned civil marriage. Or to procreation outside of marriage, if we want to be consistent in our defining our rights by some standard of values.

For example, my grandmother became engaged recently. She’ll be married with the full sanction of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Yet, I reasonably assume that she is beyond her child-bearing years. Some other criteria must be at work. Love? Happiness? What is it? Are those enough, since she will have no more children? Whatever it is, surely gay Americans possess the same capacity and desire to exercise this fundamental right.

Any color you want, as long as we like it

Our government certainly creates issues with the way it inserts itself into commerce, but the European Commission’s involvement with Microsoft puts our central planners to shame:

The European Commission has said it will “closely monitor” the impact of Microsoft’s soon-to-be-launched Vista operating system on the market.
…

But in a statement the EC said that while it has been “informed” of Microsoft’s plans it has not given a “green light” to Vista’s delivery because “Microsoft must shoulder its own responsibilities to ensure that Vista is fully compliant with EC Treaty competition rules and in particular with the principles laid down in the March 2004 Commission antitrust decision concerning Microsoft”.

I’m sure Microsoft will be presumed innocent of any anti-socialist behavior until the EC proves that Microsoft is breaking the rules. I’m not serious about that belief because the phrase I highlighted says everything. (The rest is instructive, as well.) In a free market, which Europe clearly isn’t, customers get to decide if they like a company’s product. Instead, the EC stands in the way telling Europeans whether or not they’re allowed to like it. The European Commission is stupid.

A glimmer of libertarianism

The (D) after his name suggests there are cases where Rep. Barney Frank has voted against the principle he states here about the anti-gambling bill, but for now, it’s useful to point out that at least one Representative in Congress has a clue about his role:

“If an adult in this country, with his or her own money, wants to engage in an activity that harms no one, how dare we prohibit it because it doesn’t add to the GDP or it has no macroeconomic benefit. Are we all to take home calculators and, until we have satisfied the gentleman from Iowa that we are being socially useful, we abstain from recreational activities that we choose?… People have said, What is the value of gambling ? Here is the value. Some human beings enjoy doing it. Shouldn’t that be our principle? If individuals like doing something and they harm no one, we will allow them to do it, even if other people disapprove of what they do.

That’s 89% fantastic. I’d change only the last sentence, to something like this:

If individuals like doing something and they harm no one, we do not have the power to prohibit it, even if other people disapprove of what they do.

That gets to the true principle, based on the liberty guaranteed in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Congress gets its powers from us. It does not grant us our rights. Kudos to Rep. Frank for stating what needs to be said.

Hat tip: Hit and Run

Does this make me a political vegan?

This, from an article about Sen. Specter’s efforts to acknowledge existing Constitutional principles within the recent torture bill, shows what’s wrong with Congress:

But for at least some Democrats involved in lobbying on the bill, the defeat of these amendments — plus Specter’s — was not entirely an unhappy result. Some lawyers representing detainees told lawmakers before the vote that they were convinced the Supreme Court would strike down Bush’s version of the bill.

They argued against a compromise — such as Specter’s unoffered amendment — on grounds that it could make the outcome more difficult for the court to reject, a senior Democratic aide said. “We were hearing from some of the constitutional experts that . . . it is better to leave the pig ugly than put lipstick on it,” the aide said, explaining why Democrats did not propose a habeas corpus amendment that might have won.

I understand the logic, but it’s a sad indictment of the hacks in Congress that everyone can just leave the mess to the Supreme Court. That’s certainly no guarantee that the President will be held to his Constitutional limits.

Love is the family value, not gender distribution

I find this news interesting:

Former U.S. Rep. Gerry Studds, the first openly gay person elected to Congress, died early Saturday at Boston Medical Center, several days after he collapsed while walking his dog, his husband [Dean Hara] said.

Mr. Studds has been in the news lately for something that happened more than three decades ago. (Read the story if you don’t know what it is, or why it’s relevant.) But that’s not the interesting part. That last part, his husband, is the key.

A major newspaper can report that as part of the story without including sidebar’s about the deteriorating state of Massachusetts as a result. That’s instructive. But the accompanying fact of Mr. Hara’s involvement in making decisions prior to the death of Mr. Studds shows how vital marriage equality is to America. In any other state, Mr. Hara would be left out of such decisions. It’s possible, perhaps probable, that the person he loves would have died alone had the highest court in Massachusetts not acknowledged that the state must treat every citizen the same. That would’ve been the tragedy, not the equal exercise of civil rights.

The post where I praise the Bush Administration

This is wonderful news:

The Bush administration has decided to end its funding of a groundbreaking program that has sought to curb the spread of HIV by offering subsidized circumcisions to men in Swaziland.

A statement issued Thursday night by the U.S. Agency for International Development said that it had only recently learned of the program and that it violated government policy supporting study of circumcision but not services offering the procedure.
…

In its statement, USAID said the funding “should not have occurred, and there will be no further circumcisions performed with U.S. Government funds until the PEPFAR Scientific Steering Committee reviews data from ongoing clinical trials and considers any recommendations on male circumcision from the normative international Agencies.” PEPFAR is the Bush anti-AIDS program.

According to the article taxpayer money only paid for adult circumcisions. That makes me happier less angry, but barely. I’m not sure where funding AIDS prevention in Africa falls within the Constitutional responsibilities granted to the United States government, but that’s not my issue. I’m not going to approach the scientific implications, either. I’m still not denying them; I just don’t believe they’re enough for the reasons I’ve explained in the past.

I applaud this primarily because I don’t believe circumcision is the most effective HIV prevention for the Third World. Economic development would have a far greater impact. Clean water would have a far greater impact. If we’re going to be involved, we need to set the foundation for allowing these men (and women) to help themselves. They need some hope that engaging in safer sex will result in a better life, a life with opportunity.

This means no longer propping up corrupt dictators who squander our foreign aid. That’s easily said, and I accept that. The details, which I haven’t provided beyond the most basic form, are important. But it seems obvious that we need to remove diseased regimes. Removing healthy foreskins only hides the symptoms.