Category: Politics

Voters as Spoiled Children

Courtesy of an e-mail Andrew Sullivan received from a reader, here’s an ill-informed defense of majoritarianism, referencing Mitt Romney.

What’s wrong with politicians doing whatever it is we want, regardless of their own personal views? Isn’t that what we elect them for, to do the will of the people? It’s better than politicians who stick to their own asinine views as a matter of principle, the will of the people be damned.

No, that’s not what we elect them to do. We elect them to uphold the Constitution of the United States, as expressed in the oath of office found in Article II, Section I.

The will of the people plays a part, as it’s our government, but the president’s role does not involve indulging our whims. He who will pander instead of upholding the Constitution should not be president. Few can live up to this simple standard, requiring us to do the best we can with who we have. But that’s why we have constitutional checks on the executive (and other elected, political offices).

No Lacky Left Behind

Fouad Ajami may find it compelling to call on President Bush to pardon I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby for his loyal service as “a soldier in your–our–war in Iraq”, but I find it dangerous and intellectually immature. For example:

The men and women who entrusted you with the presidency, I dare say, are hard pressed to understand why former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who was the admitted leaker of Mrs. Wilson’s identity to columnist Robert Novak, has the comforts of home and freedom and privilege while Scooter Libby faces the dreaded prospect of imprisonment.

It’s quite the conservative principle to pardon a guilty man so that we don’t feel bad about another guilty man being free. You know, since there’s no other solution. I’m unconvinced, and again find it dangerous, by the rhetoric that Libby “can’t be left behind as a casualty of a war our country had once proudly claimed [factual sic] as its own.”

Not Acting Presidential

This lovefest for Democrats and their progressive rebuke of “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell” is fascinating:

The presidential candidates are dividing starkly along party lines on one of the signature fights of the 1990s: whether the 14-year-old policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell” should be repealed and gay men and lesbians allowed to serve openly in the military.

In back-to-back debates in New Hampshire this week, every Democratic candidate raised his or her hand in support of repealing that policy, while not a single Republican embraced the idea. Democrats argued with striking unanimity that it was time to end the uneasy compromise that President Bill Clinton reached in 1993, after his attempt to lift the ban on gay men and lesbians in the military provoked one of the most wrenching fights of his young administration.

Right. Allow me to quote Kip:

… If Biden, Dodd, Obama and Clinton are all so yippee-ki-yay to abolish this abomination, then why haven’t any of them actually introduced a bill in the Senate to do so? Recall that the House version already exists (although it is languishing in committee) — all any Senator has to do is introduce the same text. …

That’s obvious, and as Kip also points out, Sen. Clinton is on the Senate Armed Services Committee, where such a bill would begin. So why exactly should those of us who think that members of our military should be judged solely on their conduct be happy about this?

Geoffrey Garin, a Democratic pollster who also works for the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group, argues, “Iraq and the war on terror have created a whole new narrative around the issue of gays serving in the military.” Advocates of changing the policy increasingly argue that it is costing the military talent and manpower it badly needs.

On the other hand, there are political risks, which Republican candidates hinted at this week. If the Democrats emphasized the issue, even in their primaries, it could seem a distraction from issues that are more important to most Americans, including the war, gasoline prices and health care, said David Winston, a Republican pollster. Beyond that, in the view of some Republicans, the issue feeds into the criticism that surfaced in the early 1990s — that the military should not be a laboratory for social engineering.

Why should I vote for a Democratic candidate who can’t figure out that a narrative explaining why booting translators, who are in short supply, from the military during a war in which those skills are most needed is the perfect, impenetrable argument against such nonsense that the war demands institutionalized bigotry? If they can’t understand that, they are idiots incapable of formulating any strategy more complex than basic pandering. If they understand it, they are cowards afraid to challenge stupidity. I’ll vote for neither.

Post Script: Mitt Romney believes that now is not the time to repeal “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell” because we should not undertake a “social experiment” in a time of war. First, as currently defined, that war is permanent. Quite the convenient catch-22. Second, Romney believes that equality under the law is a “social experiment.” I don’t know which point makes him more unfit to be president.

Perhaps in a surprise, I don’t swear in this entry.

I’m behind on commenting on this, but I was quite pleased at the smackdown handed to the FCC in its indecency ruling against Fox. It’s nice to see that fighting back against Constitutional abuses can succeed. (I’m assuming the Supreme Court won’t reverse the decision.) The court’s arguments throughout the last thirty years have been absurd, despite the limited and “public” nature of broadcasting at the time of Pacifica. With the rise of cable and the Internet, among other sources of entertainment, government meddling in content is simply unacceptable. The First Amendment says what it says.

What’s most useful to read into the decision is the reaction.

“I’m disappointed in the court’s ruling,” FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin said in an interview. “I think the commission had done the right thing in trying to protect families from that kind of language, and I think it’s unfortunate that the court in New York has said that this kind of language is appropriate on TV.”

It’s his job to “protect families”. The government should not be in the nannying business. And notice his obfuscation of the ruling. The court did not rule that swear words are “appropriate” on television, only that the FCC went too far in the way it applied it its vague, unclear rules in the case at hand. It said the FCC’s behavior was inappropriate. The decision of what’s “appropriate” on television is up to broadcasters and viewers. The free market can decide, as it’s already doing on cable. There are more than enough channels offering a wide-range of programming, along with the technology to block anything unwanted.

The Parents Television Council, which has sent hundreds of thousands of indecency complaints to the FCC in recent years [ed. note: many of them form letter duplicates from people who never saw what they complained about], criticized the ruling. The group’s president, Tim Winter, said in a statement that “a court in New York City has cleared the way for television networks to use the f-word and s-word in front of children at any time of the day.”

A court in New York City didn’t do that. “Blame” the framers of our Constitution. It also bears repeating here that, while the way is allegedly cleared, market demands will still restrain what shows up on television. Maybe the Parents Television Council could divert some of its attention from bombarding the government with pleas for force to networks with declarations that “indecent” programming will be met with the “Off” button on the television.

Saving the best for last, Commissioner Copps goes further in threatening his dream of censorship because he is never one to be outdone (see here and here):

FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps warned in a statement, “any broadcaster who sees this decision as a green light to send more gratuitous sex and violence into our homes would be making a huge mistake.”

I would love to come up with something witty, but I’ll point to Jesse Walker’s reaction:

In real life, Michael Copps has five children. In his mind, he has 83 million.

I might even up that fantasy to 300 million.

We can’t stop access to weapons, if we understand the term “weapon”.

This appears to be an unfortunate vindication of what I argued in this recent post:

A vehicle hurtled through a crowded street festival in the District last night, knocking people down, throwing some in the air and pinning others beneath its wheels, according to accounts from police and witnesses. Authorities said 35 people were taken to hospitals, seven with severe injuries.

The chaotic scene occurred about 8 p.m. at Unifest, an annual street festival sponsored by a prominent Anacostia church. Witness accounts indicated that a gray station wagon, with a woman driving, plowed through swarms of festival-goers on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue and W Street SE, among other thoroughfares.
…

The driver of the station wagon “was purposeful,” said a man who saw some of the incident from his porch. “She was going purposefully. She was not going to stop.”

If this was intentional, can I expect to soon hear a call for a ban on cars?

No? Why not?

I’d like to buy the world a Coke water.

Here’s a “scary scenario”, courtesy of the Sudanese ambassador to Washington during his press conference in response to economic sanctions in response to the ongoing atrocity in Darfur.

… John Ukec Lueth Ukec, the Sudanese ambassador to Washington — held a news conference at the National Press Club yesterday to respond to President Bush’s new sanctions against his regime. In his hour-long presentation, he described a situation in his land that bore no relation to reality.

During the bulk of the press conference, the ambassador denied any deaths in Sudan, while contradicting himself that it was only collateral damage, comparable to U.S. actions in Iraq. Clearly, he’s reaching for anything. Continuing:

What’s more, the good and peaceful leaders of Sudan were prepared to retaliate massively: They would cut off shipments of the emulsifier gum arabic, thereby depriving the world of cola.

“I want you to know that the gum arabic which runs all the soft drinks all over the world, including the United States, mainly 80 percent is imported from my country,” the ambassador said after raising a bottle of Coca-Cola.

A reporter asked if Sudan was threatening to “stop the export of gum arabic and bring down the Western world.”

“I can stop that gum arabic and all of us will have lost this,” [the ambassador] warned anew, beckoning to the Coke bottle. “But I don’t want to go that way.”

I know nothing of soft drink ingredients, other than they consist mostly of sugar. I don’t understand the chemistry of why gum arabic is essential, or how it works. It doesn’t really matter. Should Sudan retaliate by prohibiting the export of gum arabic, I have a strong suspicion that Coca-Cola and Pepsi will figure out an alternative approach to making their soft drinks. Inevitably, his threat will fail to achieve his desired results.

That doesn’t mean he won’t achieve results. He will, but the citizens of Sudan who rely on gum arabic exports will be harmed. Their income and trade will shrink, exacerbating an already questionable situation. Dictators have a funny way of not caring about that. The U.S. will probably get the international blame for that, even though it will be clear where it should fall.

History will wonder why all businesses employ 14 people.

Sen. Barack Obama hates liberty. And economics. And jobs. And health care. There’s no other way to describe the eventual outcome of his fantasy world where wishes lead to outcome.

Mr. Obama would pay for his plan by allowing President Bush’s tax cuts for the most affluent Americans — those making over $250,000 a year — to expire. Officials estimated that the net cost of the plan to the federal government would be $50 billion to $65 billion a year, when fully phased in.

The Obama proposal includes a new requirement that employers either provide coverage to their employees or pay the government a set proportion of their payroll to provide it. …

Obama advisers said the smallest businesses would be exempt from this requirement. The advisers said that those business might have under 15 employees, but that no number has been set.

And on it goes with the make-believe. Soak the rich. Corporations are evil. Government can solve every problem if given enough money. Why can’t progressives make some progress in understanding economics?

I’m sure I’ll have more later on this. For now, it’s late, so let it stand that this is a bad idea and will lead to reduced employment, less health care, and lower quality. That’s not a perfect trifecta for a man who wants to lead our country.

I can excuse a lot in voting, but I don’t let ignorance slide. Sen. Obama will not receive my vote in 2008.

People will continue to commit evil acts.

This letter to the editor of Time, in response to the Virginia Tech shootings, is curious. The letter writer is from Toronto, so his perspective on our Constitution is probably a little bit different. Yet, what he says is similar to what we hear from many gun-control proponents in the United States. Here’s an excerpt:

If there are protections in the Constitution, drag that document kicking and screaming into the 21st century by amending it. Let the military and the police have their weapons, and let legitimate hunters and farmers have their long guns. But everyone else? Just let them try to club or stab 32 people to death in one go.

Marc Kramer, TORONTO

Clearly he misses the point that gun ownership among the citizenry is meant as a deterrent to tyrannical government, the kind where “the military and the police have their weapons”. To be fair, Mr. Kramer does not expect all citizens to be disarmed. I am left wondering who will decide who qualifies as a “legitimate” hunter? A farmer? So in the process of disarming citizens, we’re also to give the government the power to decide who meets a narrow definition of acceptable (long gun) gun owners. This argument is far too deferential to state power.

Still, Mr. Kramer’s argument disintegrates in the end because he implies that banning guns will end mass murder. I’m sure someone would have a difficult time stabbing 32 people to death in one go. But what about driving their car into a crowded area? Although these accidents weren’t intentional, is it crazy to believe that someone with murderous intentions could try the same? Should we now ban cars, except for those few who “need” them?

Guns and cars are different. I get that. But we’re not discussing them in the everyday, intended use context. We’re discussing what can be a weapon? Cars can easily be made a weapon, as can many different otherwise innocent objects. When put together, they can become a bomb.

The discussion must move beyond the simplistic “guns are icky and the Constitution is outdated for allowing them”.

Truth is independent of what will sell.

There are many opinions about Christopher Hitchens. My appreciation of him concerns his intellect and witty writing more than anything. Still, I get that there are criticisms. Some of them (boorish behavior) exist beyond my interest. Others concerning the accuracy of his opinions are interesting. However, some of those criticisms embrace ignorance because Mr. Hitchens dares to call out our society’s appalling actions. For example, the New Yorker’s review of Mr. Hitchens’ new book, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, makes a common, illogical mistake.

… After rightly railing against female genital mutilation in Africa, which is an indigenous cultural practice with no very firm ties to any particular religion, Hitchens lunges at male circumcision. He claims that it is a medically dangerous procedure that has made countless lives miserable. This will come as news to the Jewish community, where male circumcision is universal, and where doctors, hypochondria, and overprotective mothers are not exactly unknown. Jews, Muslims, and others among the nearly one-third of the world’s male population who have been circumcised may be reassured by the World Health Organization’s recent announcement that it recommends male circumcision as a means of preventing the spread of AIDS.

I don’t endorse any particular animosity Mr. Hitchens may expresses¹ about religions that practice child circumcision, but he is quite correct on the madness of child circumcision.

The reviewer missed what I believe is the point of the book, that religion is sometimes irrational and what it endorses is quite often unjustified in logic. That applies to circumcision, which is forced, medically-unnecessary genital surgery on an individual. That is wrong, regardless of how noble, religious, or culturally accepted the circumciser’s intentions happen to be.

Is the reviewer saying that, if female genital mutilation had firm religious ties, it would be acceptable? Of course, the reviewer is also mistaken that circumcision among Jews is “universal”, but that’s more an attempt to say “we all do this, and we’re always right, so male circumcision must be good”. That’s ridiculously naive.

And notice how it’s impossible to skip the recent announcement that circumcision might prevent (heterosexual, female-to-male²) HIV transmission. It’s quite convenient that, in a religious discussion, the reviewer wants you to know about the potential health benefits of male circumcision. I’m not reassured, as I don’t engage in behavior that puts me at risk of HIV.

Like many men, including Mr. Hitchens, I’m sure, all I’m left with is the truth that most people refuse to question forcibly reducing a male child’s genitals through unnecessary surgery because it has a long history of acceptance and God apparently approves. That is wrong. Any god who would demand³ such an abomination is not a god who deserves respect or allegiance.

¹ I have not read the book yet. I have ordered it.

² This is a key point the reviewer forgot, whether because it’s inconvenient to point out how limited this alleged benefit is, or because he couldn’t be bothered to worry about details that might challenge what he wants to believe.

³ Based on Dr. Leonard Glick’s research in Marked In Your Flesh, I’m convinced that God doesn’t demand circumcision.

I guess I’m now jumping into the 2008 discussion.

I’m not a die-hard fan of Ron Paul. His position on immigration is offensive and his support for returning to the gold standard is ludicrous. But he’s consistently voted against expanding the size of the federal government. So, he’s not a great choice for president, except he’s a better choice than all of the other announced candidates.

Last night, the Republicans held their second primary debate. I didn’t watch, but this clip from Congressman Paul is worth watching.

Rep. Paul doesn’t fully explain what he’s trying to say, but anyone with a shred of sense can figure out the gist. We should probably demand more from a president, of course, but consider Guiliani’s performance in that clip. Would we rather have a president who stumbles on his words (hey…) or a president who’s an unquestioning, deceitful prick?

Video link via Andrew Sullivan.