Ranting – Page 9 – Rolling Doughnut

Does “administer justice” mean “put druggies in jail”?

I received a questionnaire in the mail yesterday informing me that I’ve been randomly selected for juror qualification, and that I may be placed in the pool of potential jurors for the 01/08 – 12/09 term. Exciting, except I can think of few less productive ways for me to spend my time. But it’s required by law. It’s also “one of the cornerstones of our democracy and is an opportunity to help administer justice.” I know, because the letter placed behind the questionnaire told me.

I enjoy question 10:

Should I ask why there’s a part a) and part b) to a multiple-choice question?

I want to know how to inform the government that my ethnicity is my business, so I read the note on the reverse side:

Apart from the missing comma, how is checking ethnicity a greater guarantee of non-discrimination than not looking at it because there is no indication at all? If I’m truly randomly selected for jury duty, the “proper” racial mix among the entire pool will occur if the sample size is large enough. I don’t remember as much from my Statistics class as I’d like, but I remember that. It’d be nice if a Congressman or two could, as well, when they’re busy mandating such foolishness.

P.S. Thanks for sending me a form that requires a No. 2 pencil. I’m 34 and childless. I have dozens of those on my desk just waiting for happy occasions such as this.

Insert random, relevant Orwell reference here.

It’s a fairly effective standard by now that I’m against whatever the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board agitates in favor of. I’d never surrender critical thinking and dismiss its essays without reading the arguments. But if I did, I’d be wrong less often than I’d be right.

For example:

As the Bush Administration winds down, one of its main tasks is preserving Presidential war-fighting powers against poaching by a hostile Congress and expansive judiciary. On this score, last week’s Senate “compromise” on warrantless wiretaps is at best a mixed achievement. In return for Congress’s blessing to continue this surveillance, the White House is ceding some of its Constitutional authority to unelected, unaccountable judges.

Presidential war-fighting powers apparently include the ability to ignore the Fourth Amendment. I missed that in the text of the Constitution, but I’m sure it’s there. Maybe it’s in the Ninth Amendment. Oh, wait…

I do love the mention of unelected, unaccountable judges. Anyone who supports President Bush in his quest for a dictatorial reading of the Constitution has no business challenging anyone as unaccountable, but set that point aside. Judges are certainly accountable to the Congress. And should they really be elected? Opening the rule of law to politics isn’t a particularly conservative position. Of course, the Journal’s editors aren’t really conservatives, in the limited government sense, so the talking point in place of an argument is unsurprising.

On the topic of telecom companies complying with warrantless government requests for information:

The larger principle is whether private individuals or companies should be punished for doing their patriotic duty when requested to do so by the government.

And we’ve reached the point where I stop taking them seriously. We all have a patriotic duty to serve our government. I can’t imagine a more un-American concept.

In the wake of 9/11, President Bush and the Attorney General asked the telecom companies to cooperate in what they told the companies was a legal program.

September 11th? Check. Blind faith in the benevolence of President Bush? Check. Government is always right? Check.

For centuries, the common law presumption has been that private parties should have legal immunity if they comply with such requests.

This sounds suspect, but I’m not an attorney. Wouldn’t companies have attorneys smart enough to request warrants? If they don’t know or ask, they should be immune simply because the government asks? This doesn’t sound correct.

In the absence of evidence that the government’s request is illegal, private actors should be given the benefit of the doubt for cooperating.

Again, obedience should be the default. It’s interesting that the government should always be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Don’t we have our republic specifically because we figured out that such an assumption was foolish?

Of course, if we’re using the preposterously low “in the absence of evidence” as our guide, shouldn’t the telecoms have asked the government to produce a warrant? Wouldn’t the absence of a warrant (“Don’t you worry about that”) be the absence of “the absence of evidence” that the government was engaging in shenanigans?

Imagine a society in which everyone refused such requests for fear of being sued: No airplane passenger would dare point out suspicious behavior by another passenger, and no subway rider would speak up about a suspicious package.

I wonder what they’ve named their straw man. They have to have named him by now, because I’m sure he’ll be around for a long time. It would be tedious to constantly say “hey, you, straw man”.

The airline passenger should and would point out suspicious behavior, but how did that get involved here? The issue is whether the government may instigate – without a warrant – an investigative search of data for alleged suspicious behavior. Set the scenario honestly. The government is going to the individual/company, not the other way around.

[The bill] includes a six-year sunset provision, which makes no sense against a terror threat that is likely to continue for decades.

A decades-long war. Hmm, why would anyone be concerned about setting aside a key Constitutional amendment to give the president broad powers? Gosh, I’m confused.

The great irony here is that, in the name of checking “secret” Presidential power, Congress is giving enormous authority to judges who will also make decisions in secret and never have to answer to the voters.

Unchecked, the president (in general, but President Bush, definitely) would make this decision in secret. When would he answer to voters for his secret exercise of this alleged power? I’m supposed to feel better with less oversight, as long as the kept-in-the-dark voting public can vote with information it doesn’t have? The Constitution is up for a vote?

Yet if the President won’t protect the Presidency, who will?

If the president won’t protect civil liberties, who will? If the Congress won’t protect civil liberties, who will? If the courts won’t protect civil liberties, who will?

Not only does he think to the left, Robert Reich can’t see to the right.

I’m extra-ashamed today that I ever voted for someone who would give Robert Reich any job involving economic policy. From his blog today (emphasis mine):

No candidate for president has suggested that the nation should raise the marginal tax rate on the richest beyond the 38 percent rate it was under Clinton (it’s now 35 percent, but the richest of the rich, as I’ll explain in a moment, are paying only 15 percent). Yet new data from the IRS show that income inequality continues to widen. The wealthiest 1 percent of Americans are earning more than 21 percent of all income (the data are from 2005, the latest the IRS has examined). That’s a postwar record. The bottom fifty percent of all Americans, when all their incomes are combined together, is earning just 12.8 percent of the nation’s income.

This is an incomplete picture, and I’m sure Reich knows it. Look at the full picture using the same tax data Reich uses, but fails to link:

[I don’t know why this image won’t appear. I’m looking into it, but until then, the link works.]

Click to enlarge

On their 21.2 percent of all income, the top 1 percent pay 39.38 percent of all taxes. On their 12.8 percent of all income, the bottom fifty percent pay 3.07 percent of all taxes. Those number are in the above table. Strangely, they’re in the column immediately to the right of the column Reich uses to select his data. Reich is intellectually dishonest.

Looking further at the tax tables, consider:

Click to enlarge

Aside from the brief blip of President Bush’s 2001 tax cuts, the tax burden for the top 1 percent of income earners has steadily increased since 1980, more than doubling in 25 years. The tax burden for the bottom 50 percent of income earners has steadily decreased since 1980, more than halving in 25 years. Still, Reich has the gall to write this:

If the rich and super-rich don’t pay their fair share of this tab, the middle class will get socked with the bill.

How are the top income earners not paying their fair share? They do not receive ~~handouts~~ benefits in anywhere near the proportion that middle- and low-income earners receive from their tax dollars, yet they’re still cheating the rest of America? Reich is a liar.

There is much more to analyze from Reich’s entry, but it’s the usual nonsense. Head over to Greg Mankiw, from whence the link came, for a brief synopsis of Reich’s idiotic redistributionist tax proposal.

Wow.

The Internet is closed?

Is there a better way to jump back into blogging than to return with a rant?

Like most everyone these days, I pay my bills online. It’s convenient, it saves postage, and I don’t have to deal with humans. It’s the trifecta of incentives. I haven’t purchased new checks in nearly six years, as a result. I love the Internets. But apparently there are operating hours for the Internets. Encountered tonight while attempting to pay my health insurance:

The online self-service feature you have requested is unavailable at this time. Our regular system operating hours are Monday through Friday from 4:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., Saturday from 4:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., and Sunday from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

I’m familiar enough with IT to base my livelihood on knowing it. I’m fairly certain that no computer system, regardless of the business’ size, needs 53 hours of maintenance per week. I suppose the gerbils behind the scenes are unionized, so anything more than a a 68.5% up-time would be abusive.

If it wasn’t such a hassle (and irrational), I’d change my insurance company. It’s not too much to ask to be able to submit a few bits representing money at 7:30 on a Sunday night.

$8,965,000,000,000

Who needs to act responsibly when that can be pushed off to another ~~generation~~ day?

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told Congress on Wednesday that the federal government will hit the current debt ceiling on Oct. 1.

He urged quick action to increase the limit, saying it was essential to protect the “full faith and credit” of the country, especially at a time of financial market turmoil.

Wouldn’t the “full faith and credit” of the country be better protected by not spending more money than we have?

This request isn’t unusual, since it happens every year or so when the Treasury has to follow the law at the same time our elected representatives are spending recklessly the fruits of redistribution. Remember this from March 2006:

“I know that you share the president’s and my commitment to maintaining the full faith and credit of the U.S. government,” [then-Treasury Secretary John] Snow said in his letter to leaders in the House and Senate.

Our script is stuck on stupid, apparently.

To put this in perspective, the debt ceiling was $5.95 trillion when President Bush took office. The Senate Finance Committee recently approved a new debt ceiling of $9.82 trillion. Just shy of $6 trillion in debt in more than 200 years. Just over $3 trillion more in under 7 years, with a new request for the ability to accrue another $900 billion. Heckuva job.

For those who enjoy war, everyone is a potential enemy.

I agree with Andrew Sullivan in describing President Bush as “a fucking disgrace”, based on this recap of the president meeting with a group of ~~sycophants~~ conservative journalists at the White House:

President Bush may have been most emphatic though when it came to the topic of “those left wing ads” attacking General Petraeus. The president brought the infamous New York Times MoveOn ad up without prompting, saying of his reaction to it: “I was incredulous at first and then became mad.”

“It is one thing to attack me — which is fine,” the president said. But the president’s view the attack on Petraeus as “an attack on men and women in uniform.” [sic somewhere in there]

As usual, our president sees the world only in black or white, and his view is concerned with the petty rather than the important. I don’t feel safer knowing this, even though I think Kathryn Jean Lopez expects us all to applaud the president’s irrational mind.

For bonus points, the blog entry at The Corner has an ad in the sidebar that asks “Why is MoveOn attacking Rudy Guiliani?” The answer: “Because he’s their worst nightmare.” Schoolyard egotism is not mature statecraft.

Maryland Court rules in favor of discrimination.

For anyone who still thinks the anti-same-sex marriage amendments and proposals of the last several years were motivated by anything other than bigotry, consider today’s news from Maryland’s highest court:

A divided Court of Appeals ruled that Maryland’s 1973 ban on gay marriage does not discriminate on the basis of gender and does not deny any fundamental rights, and that the state has a legitimate interest in promoting opposite-sex marriage.

I’m sure the reasoning to get to “legitimate interest” for denying equality is faulty, but I’ll leave that analysis to other bloggers. Instead, I want to focus on this:

“Our opinion should by no means be read to imply that the General Assembly may not grant and recognize for homosexual persons civil unions or the right to marry a person of the same sex,” Judge Glenn T. Harrell Jr. wrote for the four-judge majority, which also included Judges Dale R. Cathell, Clayton Greene Jr. and Alan M. Wilner.

It’s a cop-out because our rights are not decreed by legislatures, as the Court seems to be implying. However, the Court is definitely saying that the legislature may offer rights beyond the (incorrect) boundary for marriage it has set. That quote is easy enough to interpret.

“I think it was the legitimate response,” [Delegate Don Dwyer, R-Anne Arundel] said. “They did as other states have done and ordered the legislature to act.”

Dwyer, one of the General Assembly’s most conservative members, said he plans to introduce a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, as he has three times in the past, “to make sure we have the insurance to make sure this will not come up again in the future.”

The Court ruled in agreement with Dwyer’s¹ position. It’s temporary in my opinion, but his side has won. He can’t accept that as vindication. He has to make certain that gays and lesbians in Maryland never get full access to their rights. That’s what bigotry looks like.

¹ Del. Dwyer’s made appearances here in the past on this issue. In January 2006, he sought to impeach Circuit Court Judge M. Brooke Murdock for ruling that same-sex marriage restrictions violate the Maryland Constitution. Once an activist legislator, always an activist legislator, apparently.

Any fool can compare irrelevant statistics.

The editors at Opinion Journal put forth their case for the success of “the surge” in Iraq:

What’s more important is to note the changes that have taken place in Iraq, all of which indicate that the “surge” is working and that we are at last on our way toward a positive military outcome. As General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker prepare their testimony to Congress later this month, it’s worth pointing to a few indicators:

I’ll get to the indicators in a moment. I just want to demonstrate how clearly the editors have stated their interpretation of the included data points.

There were 30 “multiple fatality” (usually suicide) bombings in August 2007. In August 2006 there were 52.

There were 120 daily attacks by insurgents and militias last month, down from 160 in August 2006.

60,000 prisoners were being held by the U.S. and Iraq as of last month, up from 27,000 a year earlier.

Iraqi security forces currently number 360,000, up from 298,000 a year ago.

Regarding the first two points, is it a relevant comparison to use statistics from last August, when the surge was merely a glimmer in the Bush administration’s eye? Wouldn’t monthly statistics from just before the surge began be more informative? Or at least important for context? Regardless of the outcome, using statistics from 6 months before the surge began looks like cherry-picking.

The last statistic is rather empty, outside any other context (wages, employment opportunities, actual merit-based achievements of the security forces, to name a few), so I’m discarding it.

I find the third indicator most interesting. Merely having twice as many prisoners is a measure of success. There is no mention of findings of guilt in a court of law. They’re prisoners, which means we have 33,000 more terrorists in captivity. Allow me to be kind and say that’s incomplete. Due process, burden of proof, innocent until proven guilty? Sound familiar?

We can’t be sure that the prisoners are receiving any sort of judicial oversight, so the increased prisoner statistic is just a worthless number, although the Journal’s endorsement says much. It’s just as easy to conclude that our military is rounding people up and imprisoning them without cause. I assume the only reason we’re supposed to accept that the prisoners are justly held is because we’re America and we’re just. It’s a worthwhile assumption rooted in our history, although the Bush administration regularly demonstrates its lack of interest in continuing its practice. But even if that assumption is correct, this statistic’s current form is nothing more than propaganda.

I won’t show “special” compassion for Sen. Craig.

Quin Hillyer has the dumbest argument in defense of Senator Larry Craig:

Compare the reaction to his alleged crime and the one that it appears Sen. David Vitter (allegedly) participated in. Why does prostitution (especially involving a married man) earn more of a pass than gross-but consensual sex? And the hypocrisy is far greater in Mr. Vitter’s case: He based a large part of his career on moral preening. Contra the left, though, I fail to see how it is hypocritical for Mr. Craig, though, to have voted against “gay marriage” and special “gay rights.” One can participate in homosexual acts and yet still think, quite consistently, that it is bad public policy to create special rights and protections for homosexuals or to put the positive imprimatur of the state on the “union” of two homosexuals.

I have no problem with Mr. Hillyer’s larger point that Sen. Craig should be shown compassion. I happen to hold that as a virtue, so I can agree. Unfortunately, contrary to Mr. Hillyer’s assertion, Sen. Craig’s votes against same-sex marriage (no quotations needed) were and are hypocritical. At the time he had a chance to show compassion – and equality – he chose politics. Forgive me if I have trouble generating much sympathy for his self-imposed predicament.

Sen. Craig swore to uphold the Constitution. As such, he should be familiar with the various amendments to that Constitution that enshrine the protection of rights, equal for all. Those are not collective group rights. They are individual rights inherent at birth. The good opinion of society’s delicate sensibilities remain as irrelevant today as they were at our founding. That means our government must treat each person equally. It does not do that when it says a person may only receive the benefits of marriage by entering into the civil contract with a specific group of adults.

The notion of “special ‘gay rights'” is a hollow talking point that conveys no reality-based truth about the push for equality. “Special” rights would be akin to pushing for a $1,500 wedding cake voucher for same-sex marriage licenses. There is no such push. Instead, we have “moral” crusaders pushing to retain special rights for one subset of Americans. Granted, heterosexuals are the overwhelming majority of America. That doesn’t make their right any less “special”, in Mr. Hillyer’s context. Individual rights are not subject to the whims of the majority.

Forget that Sen. Craig is a no-longer-closeted, self-loathing gay man determined to stay in denial. That’s his choice to make, regardless of anyone’s belief that he should accept who he is. But he’s chosen a life that demands denial in exchange for power. He traded the rights of the American people in exchange for continued access to that power. I can’t think of a clearer definition of hypocrisy.

Until I live in your house, I’m not responsible for your mortgage.

I, like you, am going to be at least indirectly hit by the current ~~“liquidity crisis”~~ mortgage bubble, even though I had enough sense to contract for a fixed-rate mortgage when I bought my house. (The wisdom of buying when I did, on the other hand…) That’s just the cumulative reality of living in a capitalist system. Some people will make stupid, avoidable mistakes, but the overall economy can absorb it and survive. Scott Adams talked about this wonderful reality of capitalism today:

This story made me think about one of the great wonders of capitalism: It is driven by morons who are circling the drain, and yet. . . it works!

Exactly.

I’d planned to write up this short-sighted essay that calls for a bail-out of homeowners.

The ultimate solution must not emanate from the Fed but from the White House. Fiscal, not monetary, policy should be the preferred remedy. In the early 1990s the government absorbed the bad debts of the failing savings and loan industry. Why is it possible to rescue corrupt S&L buccaneers yet 2 million homeowners must be thrown to the wolves today? If we can bail out Chrysler, why can’t we support American homeowners?

That’s nonsense, of course. Kip beat me to it and said everything necessary. Particularly, this:

…(Again, and this is important: The spike in foreclosures is not Mr. & Mrs. Bluecollar being kicked out of their single-family home; it’s Mrs. & Mr. Infomercial failing to flip their 20 “no money down” speculative properties. That’s one investor, twenty foreclosures, zero homelessness.)

If there are anecdotal cases of institutions engaging in false advertising, deceptive accounting, manipulating the legally incompetent, then fine — pursue them with the full force of the law. But the mere fact that many otherwise competent people, including financial professionals, happened to make very bad decisions is no claim check on the Fed, Congress, or taxpayers’ wallets.

Issuing that claim check would indeed induce an eventual moral hazard, even though “there’s never been a problem in terms of national housing price [sic] bubbles until recently”. If we assume that this ~~price~~ mortgage bubble is a one-off and won’t happen again, the pattern still exists for bailing individuals out of their mistakes. In the essay, we’re supposed to understand that such rescues work, thanks to the examples of Chrysler and the S&L mess. (The author doesn’t mention deposit insurance. Quite disappointing.) Yet, the presence of that pattern doesn’t constitute an incentive to behave badly? Really?

The government should not bail out people who made bad choices just because they made bad choices. Leave individuals and businesses to experience the consequences (and successes) of their actions when the consequences are merit-based. (Luck, in this context, is merit-based.) That’s the only way to build discipline in financial transactions. Intervention only negates the need to develop those skills.