Category: Politics

The clowns are piling into their car in preparation.

Who said this?

“If players believe they are wrongfully accused in the report,” [he] told the paper, “they are welcome to volunteer and we’ll take it under consideration. But as I understand it, all these players had a chance to cooperate [with Mitchell], and everyone declined to cooperate.

“So, to an extent, that’s what they get.”

That would be Congressman Tom Davis, who I believe was sworn to uphold the Constitution when he entered office. Allow me to unpack his assumption of what is acceptable:

  • Absence of a trial by jury.
  • Absence of a trial.
  • Absence of an indictment.
  • Absence of criminal charges.
  • Absence of Fifth Amendment rights.

I’m reminded today of all the reasons I despise being represented by a moronic, meddling malcontent.

Use the word “torture” in the headline.

Speaking of “evolving standards of decency”, we’re not always moving in the correct direction:

The House approved legislation yesterday that would bar the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics, drawing an immediate veto threat from the White House and setting up another political showdown over what constitutes torture.

The measure, approved by a largely party-line vote of 222 to 199, would require U.S. intelligence agencies to follow Army rules adopted last year that explicitly forbid waterboarding. It also would require interrogators to adhere to a strict interpretation of the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war. The rules, required by Congress for all Defense Department personnel, also ban sexual humiliation, “mock” executions and the use of attack dogs, and prohibit the withholding of food and medical care.
…

The White House vowed to veto the measure. Limiting the CIA to interrogation techniques authorized by the Army Field Manual “would prevent the United States from conducting lawful interrogations of senior al Qaeda terrorists to obtain intelligence needed to protect Americans from attack,” the Office of Management and Budget said in a statement.

The passage of this bill in the House is correct, although it’s years overdue. The Senate should do the same.

The Bush administration’s immediate rejection of adhering to our existing laws and treaty commitments is shameful. It wants only vague restrictions on itself, with the option to define the interpretation of those vague rules. That is contrary to everything our republic is supposed to represent. Few are still shocked by this, but that does not validate its approach.

Other provisions of the intelligence bill also drew criticism from the White House, including a measure that would require regular reports to Congress on the CIA’s detention and interrogation methods, and on any Justice Department legal justifications for those methods.

This provision, the OMB said, would require from the president “information that may be constitutionally protected from disclosure,” which, if made public, “could impair foreign relations [and] national security.”

If you haven’t done anything wrong, you don’t have anything to be afraid of. Right? Isn’t that what we’re told when the administration wants the option to spy at will? Of course the truth is more complicated, but the Bush administration needs to be accountable to the American people, not the other way around. This is not a dictatorship, despite its apparent aspirations.

John Cole is right when he states:

Bush is a petulant child surrounded by a coterie of scared men who seem to think the world is so dangerous they need not act in accordance to established law, and they really don’t give a shit what anyone else thinks. They want all the benefits of pretending to be the world’s moral authority, all the while behaving like despots. January 2009 can not come fast enough.

I’ll echo the last sentence, but only because Congress is guilty of dereliction carrying out its duties. There is no valid reason that President Bush should still be in office.

Good Riddance

I commend this news, even if it doesn’t become a trend:

New Jersey lawmakers on Thursday became the first in the nation to abolish the death penalty since the Supreme Court restored it in 1976. Opponents of capital punishment hope the state’s action may prompt a rethinking of the moral and practical implications of the practice in other states.

New Jersey’s Democratic-controlled General Assembly voted 44 to 36 on Thursday to repeal the death penalty and replace it with life in prison without parole. The action followed a similar vote by the state Senate on Monday. Gov. Jon S. Corzine, a Democrat and a death penalty opponent, has said he will sign the legislation.

The repeal bill follows the recommendation of a state commission that reported in January that the death penalty “is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency.” …

Indeed. But how this happens is a useful lesson, whatever the topic.

… But equally persuasive to lawmakers was not saving lives but money — it costs more to keep a prisoner indefinitely on death row than incarcerated for life.

There can be a hierarchy of valid reasons to undertake (or prohibit) an action. But what the advocate deems most important is irrelevant in a debate. Convincing others is a better achievement than demonstrating one’s own brilliance.

But mostly, ending the death penalty is great.

Steroids can’t make a pitch curve.

I don’t have much to say about the newly-released Mitchell Report. It’s an illegitimate waste of government time in pursuit of a political quest for ever-expanding power. Not interested. As I wrote when Rep. Tom Davis first brought this nonsense into the federal sphere:

When Rep. Davis called the inquiry into steroids in Major League Baseball, how was that not a conspiracy to seize power? It may have involved one sport industry, but Rep. Davis seemed to enjoy threatening MLB with greater congressional control if it didn’t implement a policy banning a drug that’s already illegal. I don’t think any major sport in America explicitly bans its players from money laundering, drunk driving, murder or income tax evasion, yet we never have hearings about those, even though players have been involved in all of those offenses.

My stance is unchanged. And my basic understanding of liberty requires that steroids be decriminalized.

As for the situation at hand, Major League Baseball would ban steroids in my ideal world. As a group of consenting individuals, it would be free to do so. It would level the playing field to talent alone, which is what I want to see as a fan.

Of course, it would be free to ignore my preference, too, which it clearly did throughout the latter part of the ’90s. John Cole expresses my sentiments on the shock at the report’s finding:

Imagine if, in ten years, the GOP and the media decide to get outraged about intelligence being finessed before the Iraq war, they launch an investigation, and then get shocked when they see what they find. That is the level of stupid this baseball steroid report is right now.

Naturally that doesn’t preclude politicians from going to the for the children defense of our collective outrage:

Recalling that he had raised the steroids issue in a State of the Union speech a couple of years ago, Bush said he did so “because I understand the impact that professional athletes can have on our nation’s youth.” He urged athletes “to understand that when they violate their bodies, they’re sending a terrible signal to America’s young.”

When we force our subjective opinions onto the actions of others, it sends a terrible signal to America’s young that it’s okay to be meddlesome moralists opposed to the liberty of the individual. For the mental development of our youth, I’d say what we’re teaching is far worse than what a handful of athletes are (allegedly) teaching.

Post Script: Russ Roberts sums up the best way to read the names on the list and how detrimental these allegations are (not) to my opinion of the players.

Their agitation is morally unacceptable.

Religious prudishness is not surprising. It’s nice, though, when it’s advocates do not pretend that they demand laws based on rights. Regarding Alabama’s current ban (and current efforts to repeal the ban) on the sale of sex toys in the state:

Dan Ireland, executive director of the Alabama Citizens’ Action Program, a Baptist group, said it would oppose any effort to overturn the law.

“Laws are made to protect the public,” he said. “Sometimes you have to protect the public against themselves.”
…

“Sexual matters are not to become a nuisance to people and the community,” he said. “We have enough problems with sexual-oriented crimes without enticing or promoting it.”

Sometimes I forget, sex is for procreation only. If it’s engaged in with intention to not procreate – or if it’s enjoyed, even during procreation – we’re just enticing the devil to rape America.

I don’t care how sexually repressed an individual chooses to be. But his personal religious beliefs do not deserve any credible reverence in American government. Any branch of government that respects this perverts liberty in favor of mob rule.

From The Bitch Girls, via Hit & Run.

Random Bits

First, courtesy of John Cole, Virginia Republicans have a novel idea:

The State Board of Elections on Monday approved a state Republican Party request to require all who apply for a GOP primary ballot first vow in writing that they’ll vote for the party’s presidential nominee next fall.

There’s no practical way to enforce the oath. Virginia doesn’t require voters to register by party, and for years the state’s Republicans have fretted that Democrats might meddle in their open primaries.

I’ve voted in both Democratic and Republican primaries in the past. I planned to vote in one or the other next year to vote for the least objectionable candidate, a stance I don’t expect to carry out next November. Now I’m certain I’ll vote in the Republican primary. If they’re not compelled to keep their promises or act ethically, why should I grant them as much in my vote?

Next, grow up:

The Democratic National Committee, finding itself in the middle of labor disputes between television writers and CBS, announced this evening that it was canceling the debate among Democratic presidential candidates that had been scheduled to be broadcast on some of the network’s stations on Dec. 10.

The last thing we need is another of these press conferences, but seriously, grow up. This is why Democrats are no better than Republicans and why, in the face of colossal mistakes by Republicans, Democrats haven’t dominated. Stop worrying about meaningless appearances and act like a leader. It’s tough and ugly to do so, but it’s all that’s effective in the end. And it’s the only thing that will ever earn my vote again.

Last, Quote of the Day:

There’s a disturbing tendency to think that every problem is the result of inadequate regulation.

The quote is from Megan McArdle regarding sub-prime lending and what some think Alan Greenspan should have done to prevent it, but that line is more than serviceable in so many areas.

The disease is feelgooditis.

Grover Norquist offers support for a rather peculiar, anti-liberty amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

A bipartisan revulsion at this recrudescence of an aristocracy – Democrats think there have been too many Bushes, Republicans think there have been too many Clintons – has led concerned citizens (OK, me) to launch a campaign to enact a constitutional amendment to ban this practice. The draft now circulating was written by the legal scholar Bruce Fein and reads:

Section 1. No spouse, sibling or child of an elected or appointed federal, state or local official outside the civil service may immediately succeed that official in the same elected or appointed office.
…

This amendment is in keeping with other restrictions on who can run for office in the US. Presidents must be at least 35 years old; senators, 30; congressmen, 25. Presidents must be born in the US. Fifteen states have enacted term limits on state legislators of six, eight or 12 years.

Indeed there have been too many Bushes and we’re certainly poised to have too many Clintons. Voters already have the power to avoid that outcome, although it’s still unclear whether enough will exercise such wisdom, so that isn’t the point. The problem is wrapped up in Norquist’s precedent.

This proposed amendment is not in keeping with other restrictions. The restrictions he cites are tailored specifically to individuals, designed to preserve the best opportunity for a qualified person concerned first with America’s interests to arise to the office of President. With some of the charlatans we’ve had, it clearly isn’t foolproof. But the design is obvious and easy to defend.

Instead of such wise, minimal restrictions equally applied to every individual American (natural-born, of course), this proposed amendment offers further restrictions for a tiny minority of citizens. To prevent something we feel is terrible – something that has never occurred in the office of president – we wish to prevent possible “unfair” benefits by placing unfair burdens. We would deny equal opportunity to individuals for what is not their doing.

Worse, Norquist understands the faulty logic at work:

… While our amendment would not have forbidden George W. Bush from running for president eight years after his father or Hillary Clinton eight years after her husband, both Republicans and Democrats see this amendment as sending a message about the other party’s abuse of familial power.

The Constitution is apparently no longer¹ the place to protect the rights of individuals by defining the limits on our government. “Sending a message” to a few dozen individuals is sufficient justification. Again, we should just ignore that voters already have the power to prevent the hideous possibility of dynastic democracy. We’ve generally shown our indifference. I don’t like it, but I also understand that liberty is more important. Supporting it sends a message.

Link via Andrew Sullivan.

¹ The 18th Amendment made this clear. Did the 21st Amendment teach us nothing?

Literary Device or Political Argument?

The author (Daniel Ford) of this otherwise interesting review of Duane Shultz’s book Into the Fire uses a bizarre literary device to tie the Allied raid on Ploesti during World War II – the subject of Into the Fire – to current events in Iraq. The opening sentence:

Whereas now we go into combat hoping for zero casualties and regard any loss whatever as proof of unforgivable incompetence, the history of warfare is mostly a chronicle of high casualties and terrible sacrifice.

I initially thought there might be a specific political agenda to this. A little reflection makes me think that it’s more innocent than that, but it’s still strange. Did the United States go into WWII hoping for high casualties and terrible sacrifice? I doubt it, so I don’t think anything changed in the last 66 years. Assuming Mr. Ford meant to imply that we used to suffer casualties beyond what we’d accept or believe today, the device is clumsy.

In the meantime, that single, bootless, 27-minute raid cost the lives or freedom of as many young Americans as 10 months of combat in Iraq.

The comparison is interesting for putting the Ploesti story in context, so I’m willing to believe this is a bizarre-yet-innocent way of comparing the casualty reality. But the setup is unbelievably clumsy.

There’s no major point here. I’m just fascinated as a writer because I would hope I would avoid the type of opening offered in the review. As I contemplate writing more organized essays, I’m looking for examples of what to do and not to do. This stood out.

Can we put the inmates back in the asylum?

There is some nuance necessary, I think, but this Frank Rich editorial is pitch perfect on the situation in Pakistan and how it too closely mirrors the United States. There’s too much goodness to excerpt any particular part as the key. However, I like this:

To believe that this corruption will simply evaporate when the Bush presidency is done is to underestimate the permanent erosion inflicted over the past six years. What was once shocking and unacceptable in America has now been internalized as the new normal.

This is most apparent in the Republican presidential race, where most of the candidates seem to be running for dictator and make no apologies for it. They’re falling over each other to expand Gitmo, see who can promise the most torture and abridge the largest number of constitutional rights. The front-runner, Rudy Giuliani, boasts a proven record in extralegal executive power grabs, Musharraf-style: After 9/11 he tried to mount a coup, floating the idea that he stay on as mayor in defiance of New York’s term-limits law.

This is exactly why I will not vote Republican in 2008, even though I’m ready to not vote Democrat. As detestable as I find the possibility of President Hillary Clinton, she has the polarizing chance to cause Americans to vote for gridlock in 2010. President Guiliani would laugh at gridlock, as if it mattered one iota to his ability to do whatever he pleases. He wouldn’t even raise himself to Bush’s level and pretend that he cares about the Constitution. No thanks.

Link via John Cole.

Simple Arithmetic Without the Economics

Writing on the implications of the proposed Sirius-XM merger, Marc Fisher engages in a discussion of competition based on dubious assumptions. Consider:

Think about it: Can you name one example of a new consumer technology that was guaranteed to a single provider and still served customers well? (Don’t everyone say “cable TV” at once.)

Fair enough on the surface, but how is it economically any more sane to guarantee two and only two competitors in a new consumer technology, as the FCC did? How might the market have shaped up had the federal government not impeded the natural development of satellite radio? We’ll never know, of course, but that isn’t sufficient to say we’ve achieved the optimal market condition. Only the central planner is so presumptuous as to assume such nonsense.

[Sirius CEO Mel] Karmazin, who would be chief executive of the combined satellite provider and is leading the charge for a merger, counters that listeners would benefit by getting the best of both services without having to pay for two subscriptions. To bolster that claim, the companies propose a menu of pricing options: Subscribers could keep their current service at the same price they pay now; add the “best of” the other service for an extra $4 a month; or choose to get fewer channels at a lower price. But while the companies tout these choices as the a la carte offering that cable TV has never consented to, the fact remains that if you want more channels under a combined XM-Sirius operation, you will have to pay more.

I think that last argument is supposed to be a zinger. If you want more, you must pay more. Holy Batman, the injustice! It’s good to clear that up, since under the current dictate from the FCC, if I want more channels, I have to pay… more? Oh, wait.

The danger in offering packages with fewer channels is the same risk cable TV companies have warned against for years: If consumers can pick and choose channels, that undermines the whole business, because inevitably, the bulk of the audience will spend most of their time listening to a relative handful of channels. Less popular channels, now subsidized by a flat subscription fee, would wither away.

We must have competition, except when it interferes with anyone’s preference for what should be offered.

How long would more obscure, low-rated satellite programming such as Sirius’s Underground Garage rock or NPR Talk channels or XM’s Cinemagic movie music or choral classical outlets survive in a monopoly, a la carte system? And if the range of programming narrows, what is satellite offering that AM and FM do not?

And if a merged Sirius-XM stopped offering content compelling enough to “force” people to pay, wouldn’t the departure of subscribers to free radio be a fairly important incentive to offer more content? How does this competition thing work again?

Virtually anyone can start an Internet radio station these days [ed. note: if you can afford the exorbitant royalty fees for a format that generates little revenue.] and play an intriguing mix of music. But only XM and Sirius — and National Public Radio, perhaps — have the resources to produce a great range of creative, professionally produced programming: Bob Dylan’s explorations in music and storytelling on XM; original radio dramas; XM’s Artist Confidential series of sessions with big-name performers; and specialized programs for truckers, gays, Latinos, NASCAR fans, Broadway lovers, opera buffs, movie-music mavens, presidential campaign addicts and on and on.

That programming diversity is what justifies giving XM and Sirius a chunk of the government-licensed radio spectrum. …

No, the central planner’s belief that such programming diversity is the correct mix for customers, whether customers want it in sufficient quantity to justify its cost, is the excuse offered to perpetuate a two – and only two – competitor market. This, despite the evidence cited earlier in the essay that most subscribers to either service listen to a small subset of the offered channels.

… Reducing the two services to a satellite monopoly will inevitably bring about a diminution of choices, along with higher prices. …

This is a blanket statement unsupported by the case made in the essay. Prices only rise if the subscriber wants more content. I know I’m supposed to be outraged by that, but I’m not. And if the merged company dumps the niche programming he likes, he cancels his subscription. That’s a useful signal to the company. If it happens enough, imagine how the company might respond with some combination of more content and lower prices. But that only occurs if there are two – and only two – competitors. Because that’s the free market.

… At XM’s Washington headquarters, the number of producers and DJs would decline, meaning more formulaic programming — if XM even remained here. How long would Karmazin keep production facilities in both the District and New York, where Sirius is based?

An individual how lives in Butte and wants to hear both Howard Stern and her beloved Pittsburgh Pirates should care about the employment prospects of producers and DJs in the Washington, DC area, why? Based on what Sirius and XM have said, she could get both for less money than she would have to pay now, but only if the companies merge. How is she harmed?

Aside from the gain I’d likely receive as a Sirius investor and the definitive gain I’d receive if my Sirius subscription included Major League Baseball, this merger should occur because the government has no legitimate basis to be involved, much less deny a free market outcome based on some subjective criteria of consumer benefit.