Monthly Archives: August 2013

Free Speech

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Much has been made of President Barack Obama and his colleagues’ assault on free speech through his IRS and apparently through his FEC and SEC.  It’s important to understand that, reprehensible and dangerous to America as these assaults are today, Obama and his are simply channeling one of their Progressive forebears.

Here’s President Woodrow Wilson on the usefulness of government censorship, during another war in which the US was, at the time, participating only peripherally.  He wrote this letter to Congressman Edwin Webb in May 1917.

My dear Mr. Webb:

I have been very much surprised to find several of the public prints stating that the administration had abandoned the position which it so distinctly took, and still holds, that authority to exercise censorship over the Press to the extent that that censorship is embodied in the recent action of the House of Representatives is absolutely necessary to the public safety.  It, of course, has not been abandoned, because the reasons still exist why such authority is necessary for the protection of the nation.

I have every confidence that the great majority of the newspapers of the country will observe a patriotic reticence about everything whose publication could be of injury, but in every country there are some persons in a position to do mischief in this field who can not be relied upon and whose interests or desires will lead to actions on their part highly dangerous to the nation in the midst of a war.  I want to say again that it seems to me imperative that powers of this sort should be granted.

Cordially and sincerely yours,

WOODROW WILSON

The “recent action of the House” concerned a provision for explicit Federal government censorship of the press that Wilson had demanded be included in The Espionage Act of 1917, then under debate in both houses of Congress.  In the event, the Act was passed in June without the provision (the Senate having removed it by a one-vote margin) and signed into law by Wilson, even though he continued to protest the necessity of the “right” to commit censorship.

Authority to exercise censorship over the press is absolutely necessary to the public safety.

While Wilson didn’t get that power of censorship in the Espionage Act, he did get it in the Sedition Act of 1918:

Whoever…shall willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States…shall be punished….

The added invention of the Obama claque is that “some persons in a position to do mischief” are conservative persons who criticize the Obama administration.  Such criticisms are viewed by today’s Progressives as “disloyal” and “scurrilous.”  And plainly “abusive.”

Hmm….

To What End?

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Matthew Dunn, ex of Great Britain’s MI6, had some thoughts, in a recent Fox News op-ed, concerning President Barack Obama’s decision not to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin one-on-one at the upcoming G-20 conference.  Naturally, I have some thoughts on Dunn’s thoughts.  Here they are, in no particular order.

My take on the man is that he is a measured, calm, cerebral, individual who—despite recent evidence to the contrary—doesn’t like a fight.  I could imagine him picking up the phone to Khrushchev, speaking privately to him without the pressure of media scrutiny, and averting a crisis.

Actually, as Obama demonstrated in a private conversation with a later Russian leader concerning a much more minor missile crisis, Obama would have surrendered to Khrushchev’s bullying and allowed the offensive nuclear missiles to stay in Cuba.  After all, Obama did surrender to Putin concerning defensive, non-nuclear missiles to which Putin objected and agreed to not deploy the systems in Poland and the Czech Republic—without so much as a fare-thee-well to the Poles or Czechs before he acceded to Putin’s demands.  After having committed this, Obama then made offer of further acquiescences with his “reminder” to then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that Obama would have more “flexibility” for then-Prime Minister Putin after the then-upcoming election.

The Syrian disasters getting worse—more people have died there than during the entire Bosnian War—and we need Putin fully at the Security Council negotiating table given that his support of President Assad is perpetuating the problem.

We may not like Putin’s stance on Syria, but distancing him from our thus far fruitless attempts to resolve the situation will only produce one outcome: further massacres.

This is nonsense.  The Security Council is one of Putin’s favored arenas for actively opposing us concerning Syria.  Putin already is as distant from us as he can get on this, among other matters.  He’s stonewalled and explicitly blocked every effort we’ve made at the UN and on the international scene, generally.  Based on what, exactly, does Dunn expect to change here?

Putin hasn’t only opposed us on Syria.  He’s set himself against our efforts to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program, he actively obstructed NATO’s and our efforts in supporting the Libyan people in getting rid of Gadhafi, and he’s joined the People’s Republic of China (otherwise a foe of Russia) to obstruct our efforts to bring northern Korea’s nuclear weapons program to heel.

With particular regard to Iran, Putin has gone further, actively helping the régime with its nuclear weapons program, with the latest aid coming in the form of assistance in building a nuclear reactor capable of producing plutonium for bombs.

US attempts to adopt a moral high ground over human rights abuses in Russia [are] pointless and some might say even hypocritical given allegations of human rights abuse during the American War on Terror and more recently the startling revelations about PRISM and its intrusion in the lives of law abiding US citizens.

Sure.  Because PRISM and the NSA, however reprehensible they may be—and that’s not a foregone conclusion—don’t kill anyone, while Russia (no mere allegations here) routinely murders newsmen who are critical of the Russian government, jail businessmen who get too uppity and independent of that government, lock up politicians who run too independently of that government, imprison entertainers who do satirical music criticizing that government….  Yeah, these are equivalent, all right.

Earlier this year, a CIA officer was caught in Moscow, publicly humiliated, and expelled.  For sure, Russia could have been handled the episode differently, but it’s not something we should get upset about.  We spy; they spy.  It’s what we’ve always done to each other.

Yes, Putin’s given [Edward Snowden] a visa to stay in Russia, but it’s only a 1-year visa.

The expulsion was simply an effort to embarrass the US, however trivially.  Moreover, the man had little of intelligence value-add for the Russians.  Snowden, on the other hand, as an NSA “official” has quite a bit.  Certainly, Putin’s condition that Snowden stop leaking to the public as a condition of asylum looks good in the Putin shower.  However, this just guarantees Russian exclusivity of access to the intelligence value-add that is Snowden.

And there’s the small matter of Dunn carefully eliding the fact that Russian one-year asylum visas are easily and routinely renewed.

In sum, Putin has no intention of cooperating with the United States, and he never has had.  Russia is our enemy, and Putin will do what he can to defeat his nation’s enemy, even if particular steps amount to little more than sticks in the eye.  Petulance, or legitimate diplomatic symbol, the refusal to meet will have no detrimental impact on relations with a nation or a man who has no interest in cooperation.

Racism Coming to a Neighborhood Near You

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…or even to your neighborhood.

[T]he Department of Housing and Urban Development is imposing a new rule that would allow the feds to track diversity in America’s neighborhoods and then push policies to change those it deems discriminatory.

The policy is called, “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing.”  It will require HUD to gather data on segregation and discrimination in every single neighborhood and try to remedy it.

This is just racism being manufactured where none necessarily exists.

HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan:

Unfortunately, in too many of our hardest hit communities, no matter how hard a child or her parents work, the life chances of that child, even her lifespan, is determined by the zip code she grows up in. This is simply wrong.

He added his claim that

[d]ata from this discrimination database would be used with zoning laws, housing finance policy, infrastructure planning and transportation to alleviate alleged discrimination and segregation.

We’ll make up a racism beef; that’ll solve the problem.  Malarkey.  We need, instead, to address actual causes—lack of jobs, exacerbated by a failed recovery and stagnant economy; failure of family structures; poverty impacted heavily (but not exclusively) by the foregoing.  Racial “imbalance” has nothing to do with this; it’s just a club with which Progressives will attempt to beat those who disagree with them—just as they did the banks with CRA, contributing heavily therewith to the housing bubble.

Man-Caused Disasters

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…and the men who cause them.  The disasters are no big deal, certainly aren’t actual terrorism, so the men who cause them also are no big deal; certainly they’re not terrorists.

Of course we should continue to release them from Guantanamo.  That’s what President Barack Obama said last May at the National Defense University.

I am lifting the moratorium on detainee transfers to Yemen, so we can review them on a case by case basis[.]

Never mind that the ones he has in mind are Saudi citizens, and that they’ll go to Yemen.  Or these minor details:

  • Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen…is now the greatest al Qaeda threat to the US homeland according to US intelligence
    • formed in part by several former Guantanamo Bay detainees who were released in 2006.
  • Merger between former GITMO detainees from Saudi Arabia and the AQ escapees in Yemen formed al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
  • Recent spate of prison breaks across the Middle East and North Africa…such escapes by al Qaeda often lead to the formation of the next affiliate
    • July 21 in Iraq at Abu Ghraib, many of the most hardened al Qaeda prisoners [escaped]
    • Second prison north of Baghdad was breached at about the same time with similar results
    • 1,000 inmates in Libya, many incarcerated on terrorism charges, escaped in late July from a Benghazi prison in an operation coordinated with gunmen from outside the prison walls
    • July 30 Taliban fighters…broke 250 prisoners out of a Pakistani jail
  • Recidivism rate of released GITMO detainees reaches 25%

But these are just guys doing bad things; they’re not actual terrorists.  The war against terror is winding down, and al Qaeda is on the run.

Sure.

Objections to Cancelling Fannie, Freddie

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Are coming out; here are two.  The existence of these objections demonstrates the disaster that government involvement in the market, together with the resulting dependence on government, generate.

Kelly Powers, Vice President for Advocacy at the Arizona Mortgage Lenders Association:

[She insists that] there isn’t enough private capital to step in and take over, and the results on lending could be damaging.

“It would make it much more difficult for people to borrow.  There would be less liquidity and less players in the game.  The requirements would go up and people won’t be able to qualify for loans.”

She added that she “doesn’t want to operate without a government safety net.”

Of course there isn’t enough private capital today: Uncle Sugar has been providing taxpayer money, either directly, or indirectly through “guaranties.”  Liquidity will develop as the market develops and wants it, based on actual demand and supply, not on the availability of the public trough funded by private tax money—which is our money, not government’s and not yours.

With regard to loan “requirements” and “borrowing difficulty,” once the liquidity aspect is sorted out through the transition period (both President Barack Obama and a bipartisan bill in progress—that also excludes future government participation—posit five-six years for getting rid of Fannie and Freddie) lending and borrowing…difficulty…will more closely be based on actual credit worthiness.  See a nearby post.

In the end, a business whose leadership is unable to function without its collective hand in the taxpayer’s pocket isn’t ready for prime time.  No, if you’re unable to take a risk and suffer the consequences without assurance of government bailout, then you’re a failure as a businessman already.

Independent Bankers of America President and CEO Cam Fine also wants his association’s hands in our pockets, and he added a different objection.

It is extremely complex and it would be a delicate venture to get all of the moving parts in place.  It would take a great deal of coordination and cooperation among private investors, mortgage producers, properly funded and established and all of that would have to be done simultaneously.

Again, this is malarkey.  If it’s hard to do, that just emphasizes the importance of getting started.  More importantly, over the posited transition period, a free market will evolve the needed “moving parts” just fine.  If a business(man) is unable to develop in an evolving market place, if a business(man) is unable to take the first step on a business path without the last step—which never arrives in a human endeavor; the last step is itself constantly changing—being planned out to a gnat’s patootie, if a business(man) is unable to function except in a centrally planned economy, there’s no place for that business(man) here.