Competence doesn’t care who you love.

Once again, James Taranto shows himself to be little more than an ideological tool in his The Best of the Web Today column, again for bigotry against gays. Writing on this article from the Boston Globe on a minor Democratic push to revisit “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, Mr. Taranto writes:

Meanwhile, a pair of Massachusetts Democrats are tackling another pressing national-security issue…

It seems unlikely that [Rep. Martin] Meehan will succeed in changing the law; the Globe says Rep. Ike Skelton, who will be chairman of the Armed Services Committee, supports “don’t ask, don’t tell.” The likely result, as when Bill Clinton made this his first priority on taking office 14 years ago, is to suggest that Democrats are less interested in national security than in esoteric ideas of equality.

Condescension is a wonderful instrument; I’ve used it myself in this blog. But in reference to this story, Mr. Taranto shows little connection to reality, favoring the party line of hatred above all else.

Of course Democrats aren’t going to reverse “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. They’re chickens uninterested in leading. Big deal. But this has the potential to address a pressing national security issue, no matter how much Mr. Taranto wishes to mock the service of gays in defense of America. Given that current policy resulted in the dismissal of qualified translators where there is a military shortage, I’d say this absolutely has something to do with national security. Unless Mr. Taranto wants to posit that gay translators hurt morale more than dead soldiers and civilians because we couldn’t decipher intelligence clues. As long as the dead soldiers are straight, that outcome is better? Brilliant.

Of course, we could just set aside irrational bigotry and permit gays to serve openly. Maybe it’s an esoteric idea of equality, but it’s an equality that opens the military to skilled people in an ongoing war. That should be reason enough, unless you’re a hack partisan journalist.

Better Warn Comrade Moore

Rep. Charles Rangel is calling for the return of the draft. This isn’t the first time, as Rep. Rangel discussed this during the 2004 election. But the populist rhetoric this time around is worth debunking.

“I will be introducing that bill as soon as we start the new session,” Rangel said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” He portrayed the draft, suspended since 1973, as a means of spreading military obligations more equitably and prompting political leaders to think twice before starting wars.

“There’s no question in my mind that this president and this administration would never have invaded Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that was presented to the Congress, if indeed we had a draft and members of Congress and the administration thought that their kids from their communities would be placed in harm’s way,” said Rangel, a Korean War veteran. “If we’re going to challenge Iran and challenge North Korea and then, as some people have asked, to send more troops to Iraq, we can’t do that without a draft.”

Hello, we’ve already tested the theory that politicians wouldn’t get us into wars if their kids or the kids from their communities were in danger of being drafted. Considering that he’s calling for “national service” in the military, schools, hospitals, etc., is there any reason to believe that those in power won’t pull strings to get hospital rather than front line duty? Rep. Rangel should look no further than the current (and preceding, for that matter) occupant of the White House for evidence. Not that I’m condemning a refusal to acquiesce to forced servitude in the armed forces, but Rep. Rangel wants to ignore the obvious.

Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), who will be the Senate majority leader, agrees that the U.S. military is stretched too thin and that “the burden of meeting the nation’s security has not been shared equally by all segments of our society,” said Reid spokesman Jim Manley. But Reid “believes that these problems are best addressed by making needed adjustments in the all-volunteer force,” Manley said.

So, if what Rep. Rangel, and Sen. Reid to an extent, is saying is true, is it any less likely that the poor over-represented segments of society will be any less represented in future wars? Please. The military is as subject to free market principles as any other arena of life. If the correct incentives are there (more money, fewer wars, whatever), then more people will fill the roles, which I presume is the goal. Of course, I’m open to accepting the reality that Rep. Rangel isn’t interested in military readiness as much as he’s interested in playing to populist nonsense. Also worth noting is that Rep. Rangel’s expectation of “national service” comes with a “guarantee” of education benefits at the end. This is more about who the politicians control than controlling the politicians.

More thoughts at A Stitch in Haste.

Complacency in the Face of (Minor) Tyranny

Hawaii, like too many places, has a very strange assumption justifying a near-universal smoking ban. If you want to play the home version of this game, I think you can spot it before I excerpt this article:

The Smoke-Free Hawaii Law went into effect Thursday, banning smoking in all public places such as restaurants, bowling alleys, malls as well as from curb to cabin at airports.

When was the last time Hawaii’s government took out bonds to pay for improvements to a local bowling alley? I’m guessing never, since they’re not public spaces, paid-for and maintained by the taxpayers through their state government. Instead, these establishments are private businesses. Remember, the familiar “right to refuse service” exists because the bowling alley, mall, restaurant, or whatever is a private enterprise, with control over its premises and who may barter for its products and services. If the owner hates smoking or believes smoking is driving away more business than it generates, the owner will prohibit it.

But the most amusing point of this, if it can be called funny, is that in banning smoking in “public places” over which it has no legitimate control, governments force smoking into public places where the argument for banning smoking could justifiably move to the science behind such fear-mongering. The answer, of course, is private markets, but good luck selling that in America.

Those Who Refuse to Learn (Recent) History

Canada’s Parliament legalized same-sex marriage in 2005, but Canada’s evangelicals are just now arriving to the party, celebrating the same unprincipled political action that American evangelicals so dearly love.

“With the legalization of gay marriage, faith has been violated and we’ve been forced to respond,” said Charles McVety, a leader of several evangelical Christian organizations that oppose gay marriage and president of the Canada Christian College in Toronto.

Remember, the legislation already passed, so this is a tad late. A little retroactive anger is always good for a free society. But more to the point, how has faith been violated? I’m fairly certain that Canada’s law does not require churches to perform same-sex marriages. There is no civil issue.

Though the expected vote in Parliament will not decide whether to rescind the gay marriage legislation, but instead whether members wish to reopen the issue for debate, it remains significant for the Christian right and the government.

For leaders of the Christian right, the vote is a chance to get the marriage issue back on the government’s agenda and to get a better sense of where individual politicians, especially newly elected ones, stand. They have adopted that strategy in part because they say that the vote in Parliament will be difficult to win.

For Mr. Harper and his Conservative Party, the vote is an attempt to appease the religious social conservatives who form the core of the support for his minority government without losing moderate voters who want to avoid the issue.

Didn’t the U.S. already try this basic idea, except with a majority government? Don’t recent indications suggest that it’s a failed long- medium-termed strategy for building and maintaining a majority? At least we know that America’s new “conservatives” aren’t the only big-government statists who’ve co-opted the term.

Quote of the Day

While reading this post at Cafe Hayek this morning, a quote from the author, Don Boudreaux, stood out.

It’s much easier — and probably more viscerally gratifying — to accuse those with whom you disagree of moral failings than to grapple with the content of their arguments.

I know I’ve fallen into that in some of my writing, although I try not to do so. But I like this quote for its universal applicability, especially to blogging, where opponents are faceless.

Your Chance to Win $1,000,000

I finally upgraded to a bluetooth-compatible phone. It’s a major event for me, I guess, even though I don’t care about phones. (I probably use 40 minutes per month on my plan.) However, I’m excited to experience the freedom of no wires while I talk. I love technology.

To fight becoming something I don’t understand, I have a proposition. The first person to spot me wearing a bluetooth headset as a fashion accessory rather than wearing it only to make calls will win $1,000,000. It’s that simple. I acknowledge that I don’t have $1,000,000, so this is risky for me. But I’m also sure that you won’t see me wearing the headset as an accessory, unlike every other professional in D.C.

Protectionism or Principle?

Sen. Harry Reid has an interesting stance on the recently passed anti-gambling bill, as the gambling lobby prepares to reverse its fortunes with one of Nevada’s senators as Senate Majority Leader:

“I have said on many occasions that I don’t believe in Internet gambling,” Reid said in a meeting with reporters, adding he’d be open to looking at the results of a study on it.

“I know that people say it can be controlled, I just have extreme doubts that it can be. But I’ll be happy to look at the study. I’m not going to turn my head and say never, never.”

We could get to the underlying principle of liberty, in which consenting adults spend their money as they see fit, in a way that harms only themselves, if even that. Since Senator Reid doesn’t believe in Internet gambling, the unprincipled moral position is correct. Wonderful, but rather than asking for studies that suggest Internet gambling isn’t bad, Senator Reid should produce the studies that convinced him that it is bad. Perhaps something a little more compelling than extreme doubts.

I don’t expect a fruitful two years ahead for liberty.

This has to be satirical.

I didn’t get to blog this yesterday, but it’s still worth a mention. It’s always wise to check your assumptions when promoting an idea, especially when that idea is that deficits are wonderful:

A reporter once asked President Reagan if he had anything to say in defense of his deficits. “No” answered Reagan, “they’re big enough to defend themselves.” Liberals howled, and conservatives chuckled, but no one questioned the premise of the question: that deficits are inherently a bad thing. The argument has always about whether the bad thing called deficits are too large and whether they will ever be paid off, not whether they can actually be good for our country. For the record the answers are: no, they’re not too big (see attached chart); no, they will never be paid off, and yes, they can be a good thing.

I actually like the premise of the question, because deficits involve politicians playing with other people’s money. Considering some of those other people haven’t been born yet, caution and responsibility seem to be key. But that’s not the flawed assumption I’m concerned with in this essay.

When strong nations go to war, they borrow money. Weak nations, not so much. That’s because strong nations usually win, and winning nations usually repay their creditors. Rich and successful people don’t have any problem getting someone to loan them money. The same holds for wealthy and successful nations. That’s why, historically, the interest rate of a nation’s bonds is a pretty good inverse indicator of investor confidence in the war effort. The more trouble investors see on the horizon, the more compensation they demand for the added risk.
…

This is the way the world works, some might say, but is it right? What about the children? Is it really fair for them to shoulder the burden of our wars? Heck yeah, it’s fair. Number one, they won’t be children when they start to share the burden of the national debt. Number two, they benefit.

Here’s the flawed assumption. The author expresses a selfish belief that we can have anything we want, and as long as the country survives, the children should just shut up. We’re wise, or at least rich. That’s enough, right?

The author concludes:

Defense is a sort of infrastructure, too. It provides benefits for future generations, just like roads and bridges do. Is it some kind of rip-off that my kid’s future tax bills will include interest payments from the war against Jihadists? Not if we win.

Good grief. Of course defense is vital, and the benefits of maintaining a strong nation carry over beyond just the immediate expenditure. (An assumption with some danger, but I can accept it.) No sane person believes that government shouldn’t protect its people. Defense is a legitimate expense for any government and should be made to the point that the nation remains safe. But that does not give a free pass for rampant spending elsewhere at the expense of future generations.

Look at the federal budget. The bulk of expenditures are in entitlements (Social Security, Medicare, etc.), not defense. To ignore these and believe that the war on Jihadists somehow excuses annual deficits of hundreds of billions of dollars is absurd. Eventually, the interest will absorb the entire budget, so the government will need further resources. At what point does this stop? (Hint: It begins with bank and ends with ruptcy.)

If the author wanted to make a case that the national debt is good, and shouldn’t be paid off, we can talk. He’d still be wrong, I believe, but there might be a case. But the deficit? Ridiculous. There is more than just interest rate signaling involved. Namely, interest payments.

If we want to do something for the children, we need to teach them economics. And the author of this essay should be last in line for the job.

Reform is an option.

I’ve been here before with Robert Samuelson, but it’s important to hammer at this point whenever it appears:

On domestic policy, Democrats have few big opportunities. This creates a dilemma. They can either concentrate on symbolic acts (the minimum wage, the drug benefit) that sharpen their differences with Republicans. Or they can find less controversial matters, where cooperation seems possible, to advertise their fitness to govern and their credentials as centrists. It will be difficult to do both. There’s only one solace — the Republicans face the same dilemma.

I agree that implementing changes won’t be as easy as Democrats might hope. That’s not the issue. When we start resorting to “less controversial,” we come up with non-solutions to real problems. In the context of current politics, of course, because controversy and arguing can and should lead to better solutions. But Congress is dysfunctional and poorly suited to reform.

I’m splitting principle-based hairs on what Democrats should focus on. That brings me to Mr. Samuelson’s (repeat) mistake. Notice in his conclusion that he offers only two choices, symbolic acts or centrist compromises. There is no discussion that maybe Congress shouldn’t be spending the way it spends on what it spends. Why? I’m willing to consider that I’m wrong, but there are alternative viewpoints separate from the Democrat versus Republican debate.

Cooperation, and all that.