Category Archives: ethics

Awfully Decent of Him

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The Obama administration is offering to send state governors personalized reports with detailed information about refugees that have been resettled in their state so far this year.

Now, in the aftermath of 30 governors saying they’d do what they could to block resettlement of Syrian refugees in their states (because the governors don’t trust the adequacy of this administration’s vetting), President Barack Obama’s Chief of Staff Denis McDonough is saying that State will provide letters to each governor providing information “on refugees resettled in the last month and throughout the year so far.” Furthermore, State will maintain a passworded Web site on which it will make monthly updates to this information and that the updates would “break down refugees by nationality, gender and age range.”

That’s nice, but it begs a couple of questions. Why couldn’t this information have been made regularly available over the last seven years (or longer)? Why can’t those older data be provided now and kept current? Why can’t the currently promised data include resettlement location information?

Civil Disobedience

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A college student who jumped over the White House fence while draped in an American flag was committing civil disobedience and had no plans to harm himself or others, his attorney said Sunday.

OK.  True civil disobedience includes suffering the consequences of breaking the law in that act of disobedience. This particular act of law breaking has the consequence of up to a year in jail.

That works.

[The student’s attorney Stephan] Seeger said his client had no intention of taking his life and was only trying to communicate the possible consequences of his actions.

Fine. Now the public can see for ourselves whether the absurdity of the situation or of the punishment truly exists. That’s what juries are for.

Another Democrat Blockage

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Pennsylvania has a budget impasse. Democratic Governor Tom Wolf wants more taxes and more spending. The Republican legislature (both houses) want smaller government. One aspect of the dispute is this:

The sides are focused now on the Democratic priority of increasing education spending and the Republican goals of reining in public employee pension costs and privatizing a state-run liquor agency.

How typical is that? Big Government Democrats are holding up a budget deal because they can’t stand private enterprise, but they demand to have the folks in private enterprise–the private economy—continue to pay for fat public union pensions.

These Big Government Democrats need to get out of the way of economic progress. But they are loathe to give up the political power of which their “welfare” programs are so redolent.

Trust is a Two-Way Street

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Of necessity, trust must flow both ways. If one does not trust another, the other cannot rely on the one even to behave in a predictable manner toward that other, much less be trustworthy in turn.

The IRS has begun pushing 501(c)(3) nonprofits—the sort of nonprofits that the IRS has been caught targeting punitively conservative versions of—to give up the social security numbers of their donors.

Under the proposed rule, the IRS would create an optional filing for 501(c)(3) nonprofits. Those participating would, as part of their yearly report, turn over the Social Security numbers of any donors who give $250 or more to a charity in a given year.

The IRS’ claimed rationale for this is to simplify the ability of donors to claim the deductions on their tax returns by allowing the IRS to “verify” donors’ claims on their returns.

No. Since the IRS cannot be trusted by American taxpayers, it’s in no position to worry about the trustworthiness of an American taxpayer. There is no legitimate rationale for this “voluntary” reporting.

Further, for those who think this “optional” form of reporting will remain voluntary, I may know of some beachfront property north of Santa Fe in which you might also be interested.

Encryption and the Government

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Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance wants Congress to enable government agencies—the police in Vance’s case—to penetrate private citizens’ encrypted cell phone communications. His justification?

Just for iPhones alone we have 111 cases that we are not able to access…due to new encryption protocols[.]

Out of a population of 320 million Americans possessing some 200 million smartphones—the targets of Vance’s desire—Vance has a problem with 111. That’s roughly akin to five people out of the entire city of New York. Five problems, and so all of New York City must lose their ability to protect their privacy against government snooping. One hundred and eleven problems, and so all Americans must lost.

Trust us. We government men would never abuse this power.

This is exactly the arrogance of officials of intrusive government that drove our Founders to write the 4th Amendment. Can’t crack the encryption, even with a warrant? Do actual police work. You have brains. It only takes one failure? Reread Ben Franklin’s remark about security and liberty.

We’ve been over this.