Santorum

Watch the video below. At about 2:35-2:40, we hear a United States Senator come out against "the pursuit of happiness."

Noted Without Comment

The federal government is now spending money to stop consenting adults from having sex.

Endorsements

We're eight days away from Election Day. I'd like to hear who gets your endorsements, and why. Is anyone voting straight ticket?

North Korea

Okay, I'll put it to the group: is this guy right? Has Kim Jong-Il won again? And what do we do about it?

New Jersey!

The Supreme Court in the Garden State has just decided that homosexual couples are entitled to the same legal rights as heterosexual couples. While, as the Yahoo! article notes, they did not say that gay couples had the right to "marriage" per se, they did give the Legislature a 180-day deadline to change marriage laws.

That change can take one of two forms: allow gay couples into the institution of marriage as currently constituted, or create a parallel "civil union" status. For those of you who want the legalese, the decision can be found in .pdf format here.

It should come as no surprise that I dislike this decision. Not because I object to gay marriage - I favor it wholeheartedly - but because I object to this sort of gibberish:

Although courts can ensure equal treatment, they cannot guarantee social acceptance, which must come through the evolving ethos of a maturing society. Plaintiffs' quest does not end here. They must now appeal to their fellow citizens whose voices are heard through their popularly elected representatives.

The evolving ethos of a maturing society? Plaintiffs' quest? This isn't what an impartial judge sounds like, is it?

I expect that soon we will hear analogies made to the advance of civil rights for racial minorities, the inference being that any who oppose court-mandated civil unions are equivalent to those who opposed the Brown ruling in 1954 and subsequent rulings thereafter. Let me tell you why I disagree.

When judges began applying equal protection clauses to the states with regard to segregation, there existed prior legislative intent. That is, during Reconstruction the Congress passed numerous laws - and three Amendments to the Constitution! - whose unequivocal intent and plain meaning was legal equality for black citizens.

The 13th ended the peculiar institution of slavery, which had been primarily if not solely directed against blacks; the 14th maintained that states could not deny citizenship to those native-born (again, former slaves); and the 15th said that states could not deny the right to vote on a racial basis. Why was this necessary? Because previously, the states had the authority to deny legal rights (and even personhood) on the basis of race. So amendments were needed to take from the states this power.

Then came the decades and decades of backsliding, during which vile Jim Crow laws crept up and were condoned by subsequent Supreme Courts, most notably in the Plessy decision. Yet throughout this whole process, the original meaning of the 13th-15th Amendments remained, albeit unenforced. It was to this original meaning that the civil rights leaders successfully appealed. The Brown decision did not infer some new right from a previously unexplored doctrine; it merely held that state laws were not in concordance with the original meaning of the federal statutes.

In the case of gay marriage, however, we are talking about an innovation. The plain and original meaning of state marriage statutes is that a legally married couple consists of one man and one woman. Not only that, this has been the meaning of marriage in the states (New Jersey included) throughout their respective histories. There is no other prior statute or meaning to be inferred. So to say that an equal protection clause - New Jersey's, by the way, is somewhat vague - mandates civil unions raises the question: why didn't the clause mandate civil unions two years ago, five years ago, ten years ago?

This is where the recourse to "evolving society" comes in, naturally. What that basically means is that, ten years ago, elite opinion didn't hold that gay couples had this legal right, but now it does. The law, meanwhile, has not changed one iota. But the purpose of the courts is precisely not to be swayed by opinions, elite or populist, as both are equally liable to error, but to interpret from the plain meaning of the constitution and the laws.

On P's and Q's

Here is a fascinating interview with Judith Martin (better known as Miss Manners) whereing she discusses the evolution of etiquette, the ways that societies create their own customs, the difference between courtesy and manners, the balancing act of combining respect with egalitarianism, street gangs, house slaves, the American fronteir, casual Fridays, and why Venice was far more important than history has given it credit for.

Seriously one of the best reads I've come across in some time.

Okay, it's been over three days now...

...And no one has brought up Obama.

What up with that?

Not surprisingly, I adore him, and am squarely in the camp that his "inexperience" is a positive rather than negative, and I like that the majority of his resume is in local public service. He's passionate, and I tend to agree with him more than anyone else in the senate aside from maybe Feingold, and much more so than with either of my own senators, particularly Clinton. So yeah. He's got my vote, and he's polling at 81.8% in a Rocky Mountain News Straw Poll, but I can't even guess as to how soft those numbers are.

Anyway, what do y'all think? The man for '08?

Political Advertisements

Our TV gets some local New York stations, so in addition to Vermont politics, Boudicca and I have gotten a crash course in New York politics as well. Here's a political ad we like:

... and I don't even like New York!

Taxes, New Hampshire, and New York

Two weeks ago, I talked about the difficulties Vermont has been having with its system of funding education. Although the Green Mountain State is no stranger to broad-based taxes, a group of cities and towns still alleged the system was unfair, and required greater reliance on the sales or income tax.

Now, let's take a look at another state with an income and a sales tax, New York. Do they have an equitable system of funding education? Are their property tax bills low? It seems not:

Everybody has a plan because everybody has a complaint. Eat a burger at a barbecue and someone asks if your taxes have gone up and is there any end in sight...In New York, that heavy reliance on property taxes is about $19 billion, or 43 percent of what we spend on schools. But the education department reports that "a student's access to educational resources depends in large part on where he or she lives, raising serious concerns about the equity of student opportunities."

I think the emotion this New Hampshire resident is feeling right now is called Schadenfreude. But am I wrong to feel it? I don't think so.

Winter!

It's snowing outside. Just thought you'd like to know.

The World Series

So it's Tigers-Cardinals, a rematch of 1968.

It seems so intuitively obvious that it will be a Tigers sweep that I have to be slightly contrarian: I predict Tigers in 5.

Your thoughts, as always, are welcome.

Evolution

These latest evolutionary predictions come to us from Oliver Curry, evolutionary theorist at the London School of Economics:

But in the nearer future, humans will evolve in 1,000 years into giants between 6ft and 7ft tall, he predicts, while life-spans will have extended to 120 years, Dr Curry claims.
Physical appearance, driven by indicators of health, youth and fertility, will improve, he says, while men will exhibit symmetrical facial features, look athletic, and have squarer jaws, deeper voices and bigger penises.
Women, on the other hand, will develop lighter, smooth, hairless skin, large clear eyes, pert breasts, glossy hair, and even features, he adds. Racial differences will be ironed out by interbreeding, producing a uniform race of coffee-coloured people.

Oh, but then it's all downhill after that:

People would become choosier about their sexual partners, causing humanity to divide into sub-species, he added.
The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative and a far cry from the "underclass" humans who would have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures.

For what it's worth, I find predictions like this completely stupid, because they assume the factors influencing evolution today will remain constant for thousands of years. Or that some predictable-yet-unforeseen change will happen in the year 3000 to set us going into a different direction, one which only a genius scientist can explain to us.

But it is nice to know that by the year 3,000 every couple will look like these two.

Three Easy Steps

A quick mental exercise for everyone: in the interest of promoting civic good, I'd like to hear one change you'd make at each level of government.

So. Create one new law (or executive order) or repeal one old law (or executive order) at each of the following levels:

• Federal Government
• State Government
• Local Government (county/town-city/village-neighborhood)

As we all live throughout the country, the last two categories will offer a diversity of challenges and responses. So much the better, I say!

In addition, I'd like our less-than-frequent commenters (time constraints permitting) to chip in on this one. I'm really interested to read what people think.

Your Tax Dollars at Work

This is disconcerting:

Take Representative Terry Everett, a seven-term Alabama Republican who is vice chairman of the House intelligence subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence.

“Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?” I asked him a few weeks ago.

Mr. Everett responded with a low chuckle. He thought for a moment: “One’s in one location, another’s in another location. No, to be honest with you, I don’t know. I thought it was differences in their religion, different families or something.”

To his credit, he asked me to explain the differences. I told him briefly about the schism that developed after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, and how Iraq and Iran are majority Shiite nations while the rest of the Muslim world is mostly Sunni. “Now that you’ve explained it to me,” he replied, “what occurs to me is that it makes what we’re doing over there extremely difficult, not only in Iraq but that whole area.”

Representative Jo Ann Davis, a Virginia Republican who heads a House intelligence subcommittee charged with overseeing the C.I.A.’s performance in recruiting Islamic spies and analyzing information, was similarly dumbfounded when I asked her if she knew the difference between Sunnis and Shiites.

Fantastic.

American Exceptionalism Reviewed

The problem in all of this is that most Americans - and I'm one of them, at times - are still prey to the myth that our magical "American-ness" will protect us from the economic fallout of bad planning, resource shortages, and miserable fiscal policies. Indeed, how many times have you heard - or you yourself said - "We'll find a way to make it through, we always have."

There are a few problems with that thinking. First off, it begs the question as to what "make it through" really means. Does it mean bare survival, or does it (more likely) mean our quality of life will remain largely unaffected? If most Americans think their quality of life is completely isolated from reality, well, I have some news for them.

Secondly, we have to ask what it is about America that enables us to "make it through." Is it the very fact that we inhabit this continent? Is that our greatest asset? If you think so, I urge you to ask the Cherokee or the Sioux what benefits that habitation conferred upon them. If that doesn't quite convince you, go ask the millions of Africans who were brought here what benefits the Atlantic passage conferred.

So it must be something about the way we structure our society, our laws, and our government that has enabled us to succeed for so long, even in the face of great adversity. But here's where we run into real problems: over the past seventy (or so) years, we've set out to dismantle those structures. Federalism, on its last legs anyway, no longer has a credible defender among the two political parties. Capitalism has given way to the twin "c-words" of 'consumerism' and 'compassion'. The rights of the people are chipped away in the name of security. Looming in the background of all is a moral decay obvious to any disinterested observer.

I am not saying we are a lost cause. I wouldn't be writing any of this if I thought that. I'm just suggesting that the next time someone says "we're Americans, we'll get through," you respond with "how?"

The Democrats and Oil

One thing I find fascinating in (what passes for) our national political debate on energy is the near-complete lack of understanding of market economics. It's all voodoo conspiracies and mysterious cabals that are affecting the prices, not supply and demand!

Now, I expect this from a certain quarter. For example, on last night's evening news, there was a feature that seriously asked the question if Bush was "lowering the price of gas to do well come Election Day." The correspondent trotted out various and sundry characters who talked about how the price had gone down in the past few months. These same people reasoned Bush was trying to buy votes. The logical flip-side of that assertion - namely, that Bush had previously raised the prices in order to make himself unpopular - was not mentioned. But whatever. It's the MSM, I don't expect much.

Right after that 'news' piece, however, there was a political ad for Congressional candidate Peter Welch. This, sadly, was a more erudite piece of idiocy, but idiocy all the same. In the ad, a voice-over tells us that we can keep the Republicans in power if we want the same bad things to keep happening. In the background, we see a wide shot of gas prices at the pump. The implication is clear: high gas prices are this Administration's fault and we're going to change that! The ad then goes onto tell us that Welch will work to create a sensible alternate energy plan that relies on alternatives.

Now, pardon me, but if one is in favor of alternate energy, shouldn't one be elated as the price of gas goes ever higher? It means alternate forms of transportation and alternate fuels would be more attractive in comparison. Any energy plan that doesn't involve higher gas prices (through, say, an increase in the gasoline tax) simply isn't a serious plan. If you're striving to make gas cheaper, why do we need these alternatives? It's economic nonsense.

But this is the fundamental problem facing the Democrats on energy: they can't very well say "we support higher gasoline taxes" and get elected. But at the same time, they can't very well neglect the obvious need for energy alternatives and different strategies. So, like typical Democrats, they come across as vague, vacillating, and contradictory. Good luck in November, guys!

Property in Ourselves

The recent back-and-forth between Socratic and me (to be found in the comments here) has gotten me thinking again about the concept that property ownership stems from our ownership of our own labor. What is the connect between labor and property ownership? What do 'rights' mean in this context?

As if by magic, the issue of takings has resurfaced in Texas! In the first big decision following the terrible Kelo case, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has said that, yes, it's still just fine to take property from one private owner and give it to another (jurisprudence here). The 'catch' - such as there is one - is that the taking has to be part of some greater economic development scheme by a public entity. I'll turn it over to Ilya Somin at the Volokh Conspiracy:

In Kelo, the Supreme Court of course of course held that "economic development" is sufficient justification to allow condemnation of private property for transfer to a new private owner. Moreover, as I explained in detail in my previous post on Western Seafood, Kelo virtually immunizes from challenge any economic development condemnation that is undertaken pursuant to an "integrated redevelopment plan." Virtually all economic development takings - including that in Western Seafood - are undertaken as part of some sort of plan.

I am concerned (and that's understatement) that all it takes now to trample the rights of the people is an officially-sanctioned plan. Habeas corpus, private property, rights enumerated and unenumerated: all are worth little if a bureaucrat has a plan to fix a problem.

The Iraqi Meltdown

It continues.

The Prescience of Penthouse

Sometimes you find prophecy in unexpected places.

Earlier today, while reading the September 2000 issue of Penthouse (the one with Aria Giovanni, explaining the initial interest), we noticed that there was an "investigate report" on George W. Bush's tenure as governor of Texas. It specifically related to his oversight of that state's prison system.

Boudicca and I were quick to note the comparisons between his mishandling of that system and the war in Iraq. For example, tell me if this following passage was written about abuses in the Texas Division of Criminal Justice or the Iraqi Government:

And, increasingly, correction officers are turning to the gangs, not to each other, for protection. Many guards are then recruited to be "carriers," smuggling drugs, cigarettes (which were outlawed by the TDCJ in 1995), and other contraband to supplement their paltry state salaries... several wardens report discovering staff members who are simply paying cash for protection...

Where were the guards coming from, you ask? It shouldn't be a surprise to hear that they cut corners to meet recruitment goals:

When the TDCJ reached a 1,000-officer shortage in 1997, the training academy shortened its program from six to four weeks. Height and weight standards were also eliminated... and academic standards lowered. All it takes now is a GED to get in, and a 60 percentage average on academy tests to graduate.

In this truly lawless environment, the article noted, the real rulers of the prison system were those inmates who could unleash the most savage violence in the most effective manner. How worse, then, when inmates incarcerated for non-violent crimes were dragged into this world?

The analogies to the bungled occupation of Iraq are amazingly clear in retrospect: an understaffed and underpaid group of professionals, many of whom are also undertrained; the deployment of shocking violence by criminals to cow individuals and groups; the forced radicalization and criminalization of the populace for their mere survival.

I wish I could say the analogies stopped there, but the article reminded me that Bush's contempt for the rights of putatively free citizens is nothing new, as well:

The law [passed and signed by Bush in 1995] made direct appeals... and habeas corpus proceedings... take place concurrently. The problem with this legal tweak is that issues normally raised in a habeas corpus petition haven't been discovered until the direct appeal concludes its investigation of the original trial.

It seems I was reading the wrong part of the magazine in '00.

"The Conservative Soul" Book Club

I'm joining it. I'll let you know what I think as I read.

Detroit Tigers Baseball

I love every second of it, and it seems even the Oakland A's have admitted they're up against a superior team.

Who doesn't love October?

The Importance of Federalism

Why do the states matter? Let me offer you yet another reason: it's state Legislatures who redistrict the U.S. House of Representatives every 10 years - a staggeringly important task! Although many people gripe about partisan gerrymanders, I fear most people are overlooking the importance of state elections in creating those oddly-shaped districts.

It's misplaced to expect or hope for legislation on the matter from Congress. This is for two reasons: first, the power is clearly a state function; and second, once a Congressman is elected, he has little or no incentive to change the make-up of his 'winning' district. So one party's advantage over another in Washington starts in state capitols and in state House races.

Over the past decade, Republicans - led by Delay - got very good at using state Legislatures to ensure their districts would always be the safe ones. Finally, some Democrats are getting on the same bandwagon, according to the Washington Monthly:

It might seem unusual for a novice challenger like Schockman, whose opponent is very well-funded, to merit such professional backing. One explanation is that this November, Michigan Democrats hope to win six seats to control the state Senate for the first time in 20 years. More intriguingly, though, they also have an eye on redistricting. After the 2000 election, Michigan Republicans controlled all three branches of state government, and redrew congressional lines to give the GOP a 9-6 advantage in the delegation, although the state voted for the Democratic candidate in the last four presidential elections. Schauer aims to reverse that. He’s thinking long-term, but if his party holds the governorship and wins the state house, he doesn’t see any need to wait to revisit the electoral map. “If we have the kind of year that’s possible,” he said, “I don’t have any qualms about making the case that Michigan’s legislative and congressional seats are not in conformance with the balance of the state.”

Something for everyone to think about as they vote in November, most likely paying little attention to the 'down the ticket' races.

Election Watch

Looks like Warner has decided against a presidential bid.

Also, here are two good poll tracking maps to keep an eye on in the next few weeks:

http://www.electoral-vote.com/

http://www.cqpolitics.com/

Looks like things are a little more unstable than we would have thought.

Let's Define Things (Again)!

Via our friends at the Volokh Conspiracy, I discovered a very interesting article by a law professor (who else?) at the University of Chicago, Geoffrey Stone.

The theme of the article (found here) is that liberals need to do a better job defining who they are and what they stand for, if they expect to make any long-term political inroads. To that end, Stone has enumerated ten propositions that he thinks capture contemporary liberalism accurately. For example:

6. Liberals believe government has a fundamental responsibility to help those who are less fortunate. It is liberals who have supported and continue to support government programs to improve health care, education, social security, job training and welfare for the neediest members of society. It is liberals who maintain that a national community is like a family and that government exists in part to "promote the general welfare."

I found the article interesting and thought-provoking. Naturally, I found much to disagree with (not limited to #6 above) in his propositions, but that's to be expected.

I'd like the commenters - such as there are - to enumerate additional prositions for liberalism and, if willing, enumerate a few for conservatism, libertarianism, or whichever strain of thought you like.

Taxes, New Hampshire, and Vermont

As I've mentioned in the past, I think one of the greatest things about New Hampshire is the fact that our government does not have recourse to broad-based taxes, like a sales or an income tax. It means that our government can't just tweak a rate by .25% or .5% to get more revenue, and in so doing get used to thinking of citizens as piggy banks.

The liberal line on the state, however, has long been that our resistance to broad-based taxes has been our stumbling block in 'solving' our education funding crisis (to recap: the latest ruling from the New Hampshire Supreme Court said the Legislature has until June 30, 2007 to come up with a solution on how to fund education - or the courts will design one for them. Most Republicans [me included] think this means the imposition of some kind of broad-based state tax, be it an income or a sales tax).

Well! As fate would have it, I spent a bit of time in Vermont these days. The Green Mountain State has both a sales and an income tax. But what's this? It seems that, despite the plethora of taxes, the education funding problem is no better in Vermont:

The Vermont League of Cities and Towns voted Thursday to recommend repeal of the laws that govern the way the state pays for schools -- including Act 60, the landmark 1997 reform law passed in the wake of the Vermont Supreme Court's condemnation of previous funding schemes... The repeal recommendation included guidelines about a replacement system. Less reliance on the property tax should be a priority, League members said.

This Granite Stater has to chuckle. Far from solving their problems by levying broad-based taxes, the state of Vermont is in the same dilemma. With one exception: their taxes are a lot higher and their median incomes are a lot lower.

Oil: Inventories vs. Production

As noted by many other thoughtful commenters, the sharp drop in oil (and gasoline) prices over the past few months has not reflected the 'end' of oil shortages. In fact, just the opposite.

What has happened is simple: faced with the all-time highs in price, people and governments changed their behavior on the spot. Demand slackened and supplies were hoarded. In the interim, the price for current crude dropped. Of course, increased inventories do not imply increased production.

That means that if demand should rise again (and believe me, China and India haven't abruptly stopped their modernization), hoarding is the only way to guard against shocks. World-wide production has probably peaked. So price spikes and depressions will become more commonplace. $3 gasoline one month, $2.50 the next, $3.25 the one after that.

Yet our energy policies remain scattered and inconsistent. With the federal government and our 'Legislature' unwilling to do anything significant in any even-numbered year, I say again that this issue has to be taken up at the state level. State gas taxes, state public-private partnerships for mass transit and renewables, and common-sense local zoning.

In that vein, I'd like to hear from the commenters on local and state measures in their neck of the woods that they think should be adopted in other localities.

Two Birds, One Stone

As you know, I'm not happy about Congress passing the detainee bill.

But today I heard of a way to make lemons into lemonade and get to the bottom of who-knew-what in the Mark Foley instant messaging scandal: let the President use his newfound powers to 'coercively interrogate' congressmen!

Since they tell us that waterboarding and standing in cold rooms isn't actually torture, and it gets results, why not? This seems like the perfect chance to test the effectiveness of our new techniques. When they start talking about those dirty man-boy IMs, we'll know that tort... er... coercive interrogation really is the way to get things done. If they complain that, as citizens, they shouldn't be subjected to this kind of treatment, well, let's all share a hardy laugh in their honor!

Laugh or cry at what I just wrote, it's up to you.

The Republican Delegate from Albany: Part II

I return from the New Hampshire GOP Convention having learned much. It's interesting to compare the media's account of the event and with my perspective as a delegate. I think the Union Leader account is pretty fair, for the most part.

As it notes, the strongest sentiment at the convention was to get the court system out of the education funding battle that's been going on for decades now. The latest ruling from the New Hampshire Supremes said the Legislature has until June 30, 2007 to come up with a solution on how to fund education - or the courts will design one for them. Most delegates in attendance - including me - think this means the imposition of some kind of broad-based state tax, be it an income or a sales tax. This is something the GOP has stood against since the dawn of time.

However, I took issue with many of my fellow delegates on the form their opposition has now taken:

They [the delegates] also supported a resolution giving lawmakers the sole authority to determine the constitutionality of the laws they pass on a 150-88 vote. The resolution’s sponsor, Rep. William Field, R-Pembroke, said the constitution does not say the court has the authority to determine a law’s constitutionality.

“This says the court can’t walk across the street and counter what we are doing,” Field said.

It shouldn't surprise you to learn that I was in the 88-vote minority on this resolution. I simply don't think the Legislature should have this kind of power. As one of the resolution's opponents said, what if the Legislature passed a law that was prima facie unconstitutional? Could there be no legal action taken against it? I think the ramifications of this resolution - should it indeed be taken up by the next Legislature - are serious and the intent behind it is wrong.

I have a great deal more to say, but I prefer to let the commenters have a first go at their blogger/delegate. Is there anything else you'd like to know about the workings of the New Hampshire GOP? Let me know!