Tag Archives: government

You Didn’t Hear It Here First

Posted on by
Reply

Although I have written something similar before.

Freedom of speech is on no use to a man who has nothing to say, and freedom of worship is of no use to a man who has lost his God.

And

We cannot read the history of our rise and development as a nation without reckoning with the place the Bible has occupied in shaping the advances of our Republic.

And

The lessons of history, confirmed by the evidence immediately before me, show conclusively that continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole our relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. It is inimical to the dictates of a sound policy. It is in violation of the traditions of America.

And on Social Security, as it was drafted originally (and ultimately as passed and evolved; although the remark was made of the draft):

This is the same old dole under another name.  It is almost dishonest to build up an accumulated deficit for the Congress of the United States to meet in 1980.  We can’t do that.  We can’t sell the United States short in 1980 any more than in 1935.

Who said this stuff?  A man not known for his modern conservatism: Franklin Roosevelt.

The catalog of Roosevelt’s economic and regulatory failures is long, but there also is much that the present administration could have listened to and thereby avoided the damage done by its own economic and regulatory failures—as could FDR, had he listened to himself.

 

h/t to Power Line

Another Thought on Self Defense

Posted on by
Reply

I wrote, a short time ago, about individual self-defense.  In this post, I’d like to explore a little bit of the self-defense rights of a nation.  Senator Jon Kyle (R, AZ) asked, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, “What’s at Stake in the Missile-Defense Debate?”  His question also raises a larger question concerning a nation’s right to self-defense.  I’ll address the second question first, then I’ll talk about the role of missile defenses within that right.

As our Declaration of Independence acknowledges, all men have a right, among other things, to our Lives, our Liberty, and our Happiness.  In that earlier post I demonstrated the right, and the obligation, of each individual to defend himself—lethally, if necessary—against threats to himself, his family, his property, and to extend that defense to others whom he might see under similar threat.

Far too often, that individual is incapable of conducting that defense, even acting in concert with a few of his fellows.  This is why, as Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, et al., have demonstrated, men come together to form social compacts, nations, with governing structures.  Universal among these men’s demonstrations was a purpose of those compacts: to defend the individual members against external threats.  Thus, nations are formed for an explicit purpose of defending its citizens—of defending itself.

The right of a nation to defend itself thus flows directly from its members’ individual rights to defend themselves.

Within a national right of self-defense, where do missile defenses fit?  Plainly, a nation that does not use all of the tools at its disposal is limiting itself in its ability to carry out its duty of defending its citizens, of defending itself.  A nation that disgorges itself of any of the tools it has, and/or turns its back on acquiring all the tools it might, that are useful in defending itself is turning its back entirely on its obligation to defend itself.

This failure is exacerbated in a nuclear world, where one of the weapons of attack is fully capable of destroying an entire city, murdering the hundreds of thousands or millions of people who live(d) there.  A missile defense capability becomes critical to national defense, even to national survival, when such offensive destruction is possible.  Certainly, a missile defense of the kind discussed by Lyle and dismissed by President Obama is useful only against missiles and is not proof against those missiles.  However, with our enemies capable of missile delivery of nuclear destruction, not defending against that threat is not just amoral, it’s actively immoral.

For the United States to walk away from a maximally capable defense capacity solely to appease our enemies who have that nuclear offensive capability is not just amoral, it’s actively immoral.  Yet this appears to be the path on which Obama is setting us.  He already has withdrawn missile defenses against rogue Iranian missiles from eastern Europe (where they could defend Israel and Europe against Iranian attack) at Russia’s behest.  Now he’s telling outgoing Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and incoming Russian President Vladimir Putin that, given time to win his reelection before being pressed on our missile defense system, he’ll then no longer be accountable, and he can give the Russians everything they want in the complete removal of any American missile defense capacity.

Senator Kyle rightly points out legal concerns about this course.

[President Obama] may have to ignore or circumvent commitments he made to Congress to secure support for the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start)—among them, that he would deploy all four phases of planned U.S. missile-defense systems for Europe, and that he would modernize the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system for the protection of the U.S. homeland.

Never mind that acceding to Russian demands would eliminate

…the only U.S. theater missile-defense system capable of catching intercontinental-range Iranian missiles, making it important for the defense of our homeland.

Senator Kyle adds

It is questionable whether concessions on missile defense would induce Russia to further reduce its nuclear arsenal.  Unlike the U.S., Russia maintains a robust nuclear warhead production capability, and its national security strategy is to increase reliance on nuclear weapons.  Russia is also modernizing ICBMs and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

Indeed.  I’m reminded of the Third Punic War.  Rome insisted that Carthage disarm itself, and Carthage acceded to the demand.  After that, Rome attacked, razed Carthage to the ground, occupied all Carthaginian territory, and enslaved its surviving people.

But Obama has said of his moves to eliminate our missile defenses

As a nuclear power – as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon – the United States has a moral responsibility….

Sorry.  The one who would unilaterally remove our ability to defend ourselves is in no position to discuss any part of our military posture.

Further, the champion of wealth distribution, of “you’ve made enough money,” give up what I’ve determined for you as excessive for me to redistribute; the champion of denying anyone his right to live his life to the fullest of his own potential through that wealth redistribution is in no position to lecture anyone on morality.

Government and Due Process

Posted on by
2

Senator Barbara Boxer (D, CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, UT) want to bar American citizens from leaving the country solely on the basis of the say so one of the collections of President Obama’s decried “unelected officials”—this time the bureaucrats of the IRS.

Boxer’s Senate Bill 1813, “Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act” (MAP-21), is “AN ACT To reauthorize Federal-aid highway and highway safety construction programs, and for other purposes.”  Reid tacked on to this his amendment, which reads in part (it’s in Section 40304 of this 1,700 page bill):

If the Secretary [of the Treasury] receives certification by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue that any individual has a seriously delinquent tax debt in an amount in excess of $50,000, the Secretary shall transmit such certification to the Secretary of State for action with respect to denial, revocation, or limitation of a passport….

Hmm….

The Editor of the Congressional Quarterly publication’s Senate Watch, Niels Lesniewski, insists that such a thing has legal precedent:

Existing law says that passports may not be reviewed for applicants owing child support in excess of $2,500.  So I think supporters would say: “You can’t get a passport if you don’t pay child support, but you can get a passport if you don’t pay taxes?”

But this is a red herring.  The deadbeat parent has been found in open court to be guilty of the arrearage.  An IRS filing of notice, which is all Reid’s amendment requires, is not even an accusation of tax evasion, as Constitutional Lawyer Angel Reyes points out, much less an actual conviction for tax evasion.  Reyes expanded on the point:

It takes away your right to enter or exit the country based upon a non-judicial IRS determination that you owe taxes.  It’s a scary thought that our congressional representatives want to give the IRS the power to detain US citizens over taxes, which could very well be in dispute.

Our Bill of Rights’ 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th Amendments each carry very a strongly implied right to due process, and the 14th Amendment makes that right explicit.  But, then, as the Progressive opinionist, Ezra Klein, has already pronounced, the Constitution isn’t binding on anyone.

This is a bad amendment, and one marvels at the cynicism of the Progressive Senators in attaching such a wholly irrelevant amendment to what is, at bottom, an attempt at a jobs bill.  If they really believed in the legitimacy of this concept, they’d put it into a separate bill of its own and bring it to the floor for open debate.

One marvels further, though, at the margin of passage: this bill passed out of the Senate on a 74-22 vote.  There are entirely too many RINOs in the Senate.

It’s Not My Fault

Posted on by
Reply

In his diatribe against the Supreme Court over its potential (not realized) to overturn the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, President Obama is not demonstrating a breathtaking ignorance of our Constitution or of the Federal Courts’ power of review of Congressional legislation.  Instead, he’s just beating an old familiar drum: any failure is somebody else’s fault.

In “framing the court as a potential villain that substitutes its judgment for that of elected legislators,” he’s just setting up the next set of villains in his serial pulp novel, I Didn’t Do It.

Mr. Obama ticked off a string of popular benefits that would disappear if the law is shot down….

Thus, Obama cynically ignores the fact that, were they good ideas, they could have been enacted, after public debate rather than locked door deals, through constitutional legislation.  Or he could have let a free market agree that they’re good ideas and generate a (potentially large) niche for them.

But Mr. Obama…said he was confident the high court would not [strike down PPACA], partly because conservatives—who are in the majority on the court—have long argued against what some refer to as legislating from the bench.

He, just as cynically, conflates upholding the Constitution as judicial activism.  Also,

He said that without the mandate, it would be impossible to require insurance companies to cover everybody, including those with pre-existing conditions, at a reasonable price.

He ignores the fact that it’s impossible to require this at any price.  A free market, however, would allow such coverages at costs commensurate with the risks being transferred.

President Obama, through his Press Secretary Jay Carney, even argues with a straight face that for the Court to overturn PPACA would be to undo 80 years of precedent vis-à-vis the Commerce Clause.  This disingenuously ignores recent Commerce Clause overturnings that others have described.  Even more disingenuously, it ignores the fact that those “80 years of precedent” began with Supreme Court’s overturning of 100+ years of Commerce Clause precedent in Jones & Laughlin and Wickard—the former by a Court thoroughly intimidated by FDR’s court packing effort, and the latter carried out by an FDR-packed Court, a Court in which 8 of the 9 Justices were FDR appointees.

And it puts Obama in the strange position of implying that Brown was wrong because it overturned 80 years of precedent flowing from Plessy.

It’s not my fault.  The devil made me do it.

Our Government at Work

Posted on by
Reply

This time, it’s Homeland Security, and its move to confuse and then steal from, an American family, that is hard at work.  The present case involves a couple and their two-year-old daughter traveling from George Bush International Airport in Houston, TX, to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the wife’s city of birth and a cash-and-carry city, where they planned to stay for two months visiting her family.  At the airport, TSA agents confiscated every dollar the family had on them because they were confused both about what constituted “currency” in the agents’ eyes and were uncertain about the amount of money they had on them and in their luggage.

Their case wound up in Federal District Court for the Southern District of Texas; here are some excerpts from District Judge Lynn N. Hughes’ ruling [emphasis mine]:

The government presented no evidence—none—that the Joneses intended to evade the reporting requirements.  Kyle told Hernandez that he did not know the amount of money he was carrying.  Saying “I do not know” is not a deliberate failure to report.  After Hernandez insisted on an answer, Kyle said that he would have to guess.  Guessing is not a material omission or a misstatement of fact—certainly not one the government can use to steal the money.

and

These public servants sought to earn credit with their agency by collecting money.  Some of it is returned to the agency—like justices of the peace whose pay is derived directly from the fines they impose. They focused on bureaucratic imperatives—not their duties to the public and law.

and

A lack of leadership at the agency allowed this.  Its mission statement—which none of the officers could recall at the trial—is to serve the American public with vigilance, integrity, and professionalism.  They displayed none of these.  The agency says that integrity is its cornerstone; that its officers are guided by the highest ethical and moral principles.  A gang of armed security officers bullied this family—a family who cooperated with the officers to their detriment.  Our homeland will not be secure by these rascals.

While Mr and Mrs Jones, the parents in this traveling family, might be derided for not knowing how much money they had with them, this is neither illegal, evidence of illegality, nor actionable under any other guise of interest to Homeland Security.  Nevertheless, on being pressed to fill out (legitimately required) forms declaring the amount of money the Jones were taking out of the US based solely on their guess, their money then had been seized in its entirety, without allowing the Jones to correct their error.  It’s also important to note that the amount stolenseized was over $31,000 and that the recommended penalty for an actual evasion of this type is a forfeiture of $500-$5,000.

Judge Hughes ordered the Jones’ full $31,131, the amount seized, returned to them and she awarded the Jones court costs and legal fees.  I would have added to that the $1,500 the Jones were required to pay for a new airline ticket, this assault having forced them to miss their scheduled flight; the cost of the hotel room they were forced to get while waiting for that next-day flight; and the value of their time consumed by this wholly unnecessary delay.

The complete opinion is short and to the point, and it can be found here.

Note, though, that despite my (and others’) pontificating on this, it’s not Homeland Security’s fault.  After all, as DHL Secretary Janet Napolitano said in another case,

Look, everybody has a role to play. … And if people don’t want to play that role, if they want to travel by some other means, of course that’s their right. This is the United States….