Category Archives: ethics

Another Out of Control Regulation

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This regulation began as a Bush the Younger administration’s EPA attempt to work on an environmental problem now known to be non-existent.  Unfortunately, it’s being continued under an Obama administration EPA for no reason other than a cynical exercise in governmental power for the sake of that power.

The regulation in question is the EPA’s requirement that oil refiners mix into their refined fuels millions of gallons of a cellulosic ethanol, even though that additive does not exist.  This has the refiners in a quandary because the EPA is intent on fining them heavily for their failure to use this ghost chemical.

Tom Pyle of the Institute of Energy Research points out that

None, not one drop of cellulosic ethanol has been produced commercially. It’s a phantom fuel.  It doesn’t exist in the market place.

He goes on

Why would [the EPA] ask them to blend any at all if it doesn’t exist?  Because they know that they can squeeze some extra dollars out of them.

On the other hand, the EPA does have the authority to relax the requirement, and apparently they’re in the process of that.  The cellulosic ethanol blending requirement is, supposedly, being reduced by 98%.  Thus, in the end, the refiners only need to use 2% of this non-existent additive compared to their original requirement.  There’s a break.  Charles Drevna, representing refiners, has the right of this.

[The EPA is] forcing us to use a product that doesn’t exist; they might as well tell us to use unicorns.

He added

We’ve had to go to the courts and litigate this thing is because [the EPA] just turned a blind eye to us[.]

They have to because that mandate, the potential per centage reduction notwithstanding, just gets larger and larger: 500 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol this year, 3 billion in 2015, and 16 billion in 2022.  Never mind that nobody is making this stuff.

It shouldn’t have come to this.

The Progressive Endgame

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What Progressives don’t understand—won’t accept—is that, as Eric Falkenstein wrote

People get most of their pleasure, and meaning, being useful to others, which includes inspiring the admiration or happiness of others by one’s actions. Every time I make my daughter squeal with delight makes me thankful to be alive, because I know she really loves me, and I work to provide her with things and habits that will make her prosper, and hope that at some point after I’m gone she will remember me with sincere gratitude.

This made especially in the actual community interactions of individuals.  Progressives are only willing to help their fellows by government diktat, not directly with their personal resources.  I’ve written elsewhere about who donates to charity, for instance, but it bears repeating: Conservatives donate 3.5% to 4.5% of their incomes; Liberals just 1.25% to 1.5%.  And further,

A healthy wage is a strong correlate with one’s usefulness to non-family members, especially if you work in field without a lot of regulation.

Adam Smith understood this.  John Locke and our Founders understood this.  The “invisible hand” and the existence of a social compact both are founded on the not-so-enlightened self-interest—the greed—of the individuals participating in the commerce and in the formation of the social compact.  Free commerce, and the republican government over which the compact members are sovereign, are what lead to the greatest material and moral prosperity of the individuals involved.  The first is self-evident.  The second derives from that material prosperity: being useful to others, indeed, satisfying our duty to others (which involves such mundane things as honoring our commitments, here to provide our mutual support to defend and preserve our—and our fellows’—individual and several inalienable Rights, to help those less fortunate than ourselves, and so on) is enormously facilitated by personal prosperity (which, just incidentally, also creates community prosperity): we have more wherewithal with which to satisfy our individual obligations (which are, don’t forget, individual, not collective).

Falkenstein concludes

[Eric Hoffer considered that] intellectuals found free societies a threat because such societies didn’t need mandarins directing them, and if not flattered would help incite the masses to some sort of revolution.  A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding, and so those unhappy with their own meaningless affairs will focus on minding other people’s business.  Hoffer noted one must not merely provide for those without meaning in their lives, but provide against them, because in a democracy and market economy their preferences will have power.  Those who see their lives as inferior and wasted crave equality and fraternity more than they do freedom, and this can cause a Republic to fall to a democracy, and ultimately a tyranny.

Thus,

In other words, Hoffer describes the essence of the Liberal [I say Progressive—ed.] desire to micromanage society into perfect equality at the expense of liberty.  A coalition of intellectuals and the underclass, both of whom feel unappreciated.  We haven’t figured out a good outlet for these do-gooders, or a good way for those without a purpose to find life rewarding, so they continue to plague us with their plans and angst.

When the Shoe’s on the Other Foot

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Progressives spent $741 million on their 2008 Presidential campaign, and President Obama announced a goal of $1 billion for his spending on the current campaign.  Candidate John McCain spent all of $228 million on his.

Today the Republicans are competing on even ground—even leading the Progressives in some areas—in campaign funding, while Obama’s $1 billion goal is at risk.

The Progressives’ response?  They’ve petitioned the Federal Election Commission with a formal complaint, demanding that the Republican donors to those SuperPACs that don’t side with the Obama camp be revealed; in particular, they’ve complained out the Crossroads GPS SuperPAC.

Never mind that Crossroads, and the other SuperPACS, is organized under a section of the tax code that allows it, and all SuperPACS—conservative and liberal—to keep its funding sources private.

Robert Bauer, a lawyer for the Democratic National Committee, wrote in the complaint to the FEC, in all seriousness

There has never been any doubt about its true purpose: to elect candidates of its choice to the presidency and Congress.  Crossroads has tried to shield its donors—wealthy individuals, and corporations who may be pursuing special interest agendas that are not in the national interest.

They make this complaint even though there’s no requirement for donors to SuperPACs to lose their anonymity.  Never mind what the law says.  The law is what Progressives say it is, as Obama has already made clear in another matter.  Never mind what the national interest is.  The national interest is whatever the DNC says it is.

That this is simply a dishonest attempt to stifle campaign donations by the wrong side (in the manner of the KeepingGOPHonest Web site, among others), and so to stifle the political speech of those who are saying things of which the Progressives disapprove.  That there is no legitimacy at all to this beef is demonstrated by the Progressives’ decision to file their “complaint” first with a newspaper (The New York Times) and only after that with the Federal Election Commission.

Oh, yeah—the Progressives have Priorities USA, which is organized under the same tax code section as is Crossroads.  And whose donors are carefully kept secret, as is entirely appropriate under the law.  But Priorities isn’t having the same fund-raising success as Crossroads.

It’s no fair the other side is doing well—we’re supposed to win, dammit!

Illegal Aliens and Amnesty

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Late last week, President Obama signed an Executive Order wherein he announced his decision to shirk his Constitutional duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”  This also violates his personal promise to do so—not a campaign promise, but his oath of office:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

His EO does this: it protects from immigration law enforcement those illegal immigrants who came to the US before they were 16, are younger than 30, have committed no major criminal offenses, have been in the country for at least five continuous years, and have a US high school diploma or a GED or served in the US military.

This seems like a good idea, and it even has elements of Congressman Luis Gutierrez’ (D, IL) and Senator Marco Rubio’s (R, FL) plans for handling the children of illegal aliens.

However.

John Yoo, Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Bush the Younger administration, had this to say about the Obama Amnesty Program:

President Obama’s claim that he can refuse to deport 800,000 aliens here in the country illegally illustrates the unprecedented stretching of the Constitution and the rule of law.  He is laying claim to presidential power that goes even beyond that claimed by the Bush administration, in which I served.  There is a world of difference in refusing to enforce laws that violate the Constitution (Bush) and refusing to enforce laws because of disagreements over policy (Obama).

Under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution, the president has the duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”  This provision was included to make sure that the president could not simply choose, as the British King had, to cancel legislation simply because he disagreed with it.  President Obama cannot refuse to carry out a congressional statute simply because he thinks it advances the wrong policy.  To do so violates the very core of his constitutional duties.

As  Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales notes, the move is both “political” and “well short of what we need as a country.”  He told Fox News in a recent interview,

Substantively…it fails to deal with securing the border, visa over-stayers, enforcing tougher work place enforcement, and the millions of adults that came into the country illegally as adults.

Procedurally…it’s bad timing because it’s being done during what [Gonzales] calls “political silly season.”

“Rightly or wrongly, it is viewed as political, given the fact that we’re in an election season, and this is something that he could have done, certainly, well before now,” he said.

It is political, though; it doesn’t only look like one.  It’s naked vote pandering.  This “fix” is only temporary, as Obama himself admits; one President’s EO can be rescinded by another.  Moreover, what is it that Obama is saying to Americans and to those who come here from other countries?  He’s saying, as Gonzales emphasizes, that laws are what Obama says they are:

…by selectively failing to enforce the law faithfully he’s not doing his job making sure all laws are faithfully executed.

There’s that violation of a promise thing, again.  And

…there are things that should be done in conjunction to reassure everyone that not only are we a compassionate nation in taking care of these kids, but we’re a nation of laws, and that we enforce our laws.

Gonzalez is being polite, though.  Obama’s vote pandering by giving amnesty to some illegal aliens does nothing actually to address wither of the nation’s problems in this context: our immigration difficulties or our problem of what to do with the existing population of illegal aliens.

No effort has been made at all by Obama to address that overall problem of immigration into America: securing our borders (although, he is actively suing states to prevent them from doing so within the framework of existing Federal law); making it easier for foreigners to enter our country legally, and to stay here longer (e.g., once they’ve graduated from college, they have to leave; when the time limit on any other entry permit has expired, they must leave; when their work visas have expired, they must leave; etc.  In the meantime, it takes weeks to months to get a green card or to convert an existing visa to one, and other visas are shamefully quota-ed); or to deal with the existing population of illegal aliens—a problem for which Congressman Gutierrez and Senator Rubio, as I mentioned above, have good beginning ideas.

Nor does this address the millions of Americans—citizens all—who are out of work today, or are badly underemployed.  This Obama Amnesty Program adds an additional roughly 800,000 individuals to that pile (they are “required” by his Amnesty Program to apply for work permits, which are good for two years; although, in truth, there seems to be no requirement actually to apply for work with those permits)—where will they fit in the millions-long queue?  If they go to the end of the line, what good will the work permit do them beyond allowing the fiction of their remaining in the US “legally?”  Will the work permit then make them eligible for 99 weeks (nearly those two years) of unemployment insurance (or the reduced duration, should the Democrats actually allow the current 99 weeks to expire without extension)?  On the nickels of the states forced to harbor these people?

And there’s more.  Whose definition of “significant misdemeanor” will apply, and what is an example of such a thing?  The illegal aliens already have committed one significant illegal action: they’re in the country illegally.

In the context of this post, that they were brought here without the capacity to decide for themselves whether they wanted to commit this offense certainly might be cause for mitigation.  But we can’t forget that, having reached their age of majority, they certainly did have the capacity to decide for themselves whether they wanted to continue the (now their own) offense.  However, we also cannot forget the power of family ties, the developed community ties, their childhood histories, and so on.  Plainly, for the children and young adults in this situation, a solution will not be easy.  But that puts a premium on solving the illegal alien problem as a whole, and not just layering on epicycles of special case treatments whose aggregation will doom the whole orrery to catastrophic failure.

Finally, as Senator Lindsey Graham (R, SC) said,

I think it’s pretty clear there are 10 million illegal immigrants not affected by this.  What about them?  I don’t think it’s a brilliant move for a president of the United States to tell a federal agency to stop enforcing a law.

And as Governor Mitt Romney pointed out, in an echo of Gonzales,

If he felt serious about this he should have taken action when he had a Democrat House and Senate, but he didn’t.

In the end, though, I don’t think Americans of Hispanic heritage are as stupid as Obama thinks they are.

Ballot Box Stuffing the Chicago Way

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From the city so democratic even the dead get to vote to the nation so democratic even illegals get to vote.  This is the goal of the Progressive administration, led by that Chicago community organizer.  Ballot box stuffing is so critical to this administration that it’s even suing states for trying to protect the sanctity of an American’s vote by eliminating the ineligible from the roles so that a citizen’s vote is not diminished or canceled by vote fraud.

Progressives even go so far as to argue, with a straight face, that there is no voter fraud, it’s a phantom problem.  We didn’t hear that, though, about the Florida Presidential election outcome a while back.  We saw the power of it in a Minnesota US Senate race in 2008, and in a recent Washington Governor election, where the recounts were repeated until the right candidate won.  And in some jurisdictions, it’s simply a way of life.

And so, we have the Obama jurisdiction suing Florida for trying to remove Mickey Mouse from the voter rolls.  Certainly, in a massive effort like Florida’s we get the occasional outlier case like the war vet whose citizenship was questioned in that same Florida drive.  However, this just demonstrates the cynical hypocrisy of Obama’s administration: the Department of Homeland Security refuses to let Florida officials bounce their list off the DHS databases—the most current we have—as another check of who is a citizen and who is not eligible to vote.

Permitting ballot box stuffing by allowing anyone to vote—even white guys claiming to be Eric Holder—is the broadened Chicago Way to preserve Progressive incumbency.