No... really. It's called "tyranny."

When "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" (you know, the law that is currently reducing patient care and driving up prices) passed the U.S. Congress, I was as angry and as disgusted with government as I've ever been. My blog posting on that evening was entitled, "Tyranny", and I referred to the bill as "unconstitutional, immoral and fiscally unsustainable". Those who disagreed took issue both with my use of the word "tyranny" - apparently imprecise and inflammatory - and my assertion of unconstitutionality. Interestingly, no one contested "immoral" or "fiscally unsustainable", but I'm sure critics have more important things to do, like polishing their jack boots and competing for spots on Death Panels.

I'm doubling down.

The key provisions of the "health care" "reform" act are unconstitutional. Ever since soon-to-be-ex-Speaker Pelosi deemed the very question of constitutionality un-serious, sober people have come to understand that, in fact, relying upon the Commerce Clause to justify the bill's primary mechanisms is shameless, utter nonsense. Lawsuits claiming that the bill is invalid on constitutional grounds are piling up, while judges and scholars are falling over themselves to confirm the validity (and, yes, seriousness) of that argument.

The American belief is that man is born into this world completely free, and that all subsequent joys, rewards, benefits, and consequences - both pleasurable and painful - are primarily determined by what man does with that freedom. The U.S. Constitution acknowledges this, and establishes government not to grant individual liberties, but to protect man from encroachment upon those liberties (including encroachments by the government itself). The U.S. constitution then grants very specific powers - "enumerated powers" - that give the government the right and ability to perform certain functions toward this end. Those powers not given to the government by the Constitution are very simply unconstitutional. Period.

Over the last 100 years (another direct result of the 17th Amendment), the U.S. Supreme Court has colluded with the U.S. Congress (the USSC is confirmed and funded by Congress) to expand the accepted understanding of one of these powers: the ability "to regulate [...] commerce among the several States". The interstate commerce clause was originally and rightfully seen as a firm restriction of Congress's ability to enact legislation. However, we have come to the point where some believe that the Commerce Clause gives Congress the ability to do anything, including forcing a private individual to transact business with private companies to obtain a service against the will of the individual - as in the health care reform law.

If government can confiscate your property, your income, and your freedom to make your own economic and medical choices, what can't it do, exactly? And if the answer is "nothing", then that's tyranny.

(And Mr. Obama, would you please clarify if this really is a tax, or if - as you said in 2009 - you still "absolutely reject that notion"? It actually does matter to those of us who have to pay it...)

December 13 UPDATE: Health Care Law Ruled Unconstitutional:

In a 42-page opinion issued in Richmond, Virginia, Judge Hudson wrote that
the law's central requirement that most Americans obtain health insurance
exceeds the regulatory authority granted to Congress under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.

No kidding.

Limited government and the problem of Progressivism.

George F. Will has an outstanding column today about the fundamental incompatibility between the constitutional vision for limited government and the contrasting view of The Progressives (Wilsonians). (Read the article by clicking here.)

I am fascinated with this conflict inherent in our modern politics. The RestoreFederalism website is my attempt to focus attention on a specific, emblematic issue at the core of this debate. Three years ago, very few people were talking about it. Today, articles on the subject are written every week.

Now that's progress.

Image is James Madison by Gilbert Stuart.

Tyranny

The Gadsden Flag

The "health care" "reform" bill forced through the U.S. Congress this evening is unconstitutional, immoral and fiscally unsustainable. The process by which this bill was passed is deceitful, plainly corrupt, unbecoming of that body, and assures thirty more years of bitter, partisan divide ("hope" that President Obama would unite this country was exposed for the myth it was). The bill creates for citizens a new relationship with the federal government that is quintessentially un-American, and antithetical to the Framer's core belief that government is created to secure individual liberties. It is the most consequential (not to mention entirely untested) change to the American way of life in almost a century, and every one of those who voted for the bill should be removed from office come November.

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. Their very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals."

- C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock

State legislatures should act immediately to repeal the 17th Amendment and end this tyranny of the mob.

Release the hounds!!!

Gareth Armstrong, as Shylock

“The mere receipt of an order backed by force seems, if anything, to give rise to the duty of resisting, rather than obeying.” – H. A. Prichard

Canine "leash laws" are a matter of controversy, even among friends. It turns out that they also can be the foundation of bad relationships between neighbors. Living on my street is a man - we'll call him Shylock - who persistently and obnoxiously believes in the letter of the law, and thus objects to the practice of off-leash dog walking, no matter the total isolation, late hour, harmlessness of hypothetical dog, nor other circumstance. Conversely, others on my block believe merely in the spirit of such laws: dog owners must be in complete control of their dogs, and are absolutely responsible for their behavior. After all, if a dog bites, do you care if she's on a leash? I have heard that Shylock's zealous support for the letter of the law has resulted in calls to "the police", though not surprisingly, I have yet to see a Fulton County Animal Control officer on my street... ever.

I make my living by promoting ethical behavior in organizations, a neighborhood being but one example. Not taking into account Shylock's arrogant and bullying style, the ongoing conflict troubles me deeply from a moral point of view: Is a violation of the leash law also a moral wrong? Do we have moral obligations to obey every law, no matter how silly we think one might be?

Laws are statements of minimal social norms. Societies create laws to describe behavior that is either required or unacceptable. Given this absolute quality, one hopes that all laws - which are coercive by nature - are grounded in some sense of shared morality, but the inescapable truth is that The Law is morally fallible, and specific laws are corrected or even repealed using this very rationale. The reality is that some laws unjustly restrict a citizen's liberties or infringe on personal rights and obligations without a compelling moral argument for doing so. These immoral laws should be resisted on principle. Do "leash laws" fall into this category?

I believe that some do. Many leash laws in Georgia do not go so far as to require an actual leash, specifying only that the dog must respond to voice commands and be "at heal" in the presence of others. This makes sense to me, because those laws articulate a reasonable expectation of responsibility and control, but do not dictate the type of control. However, the overly sensitive Fulton County statue to which this neighborhood is subject requires a six foot fixed length lead. Why? Why six (why not seven)? Why fixed? Who can say? From a practical perspective, these leash laws are motivated by the bad behavior of dogs that have not been trained properly by their owners. All the dogs I know at the center of this conflict are small, harmless, non-agressive, and well-trained. If the specific dog is small, harmless, non-aggressive, and well-trained, then what, exactly, is the law trying to achieve in this case?

The Fulton County leash law (and Shylock) is attempting to force dog owners to perform in an arbitrary way that may or may not have any relevance in a given situation, and as such is an inappropriate government infringement upon individual personal liberty. The law actually prevents the dog owner from taking personal (voluntary) responsibility for his own (or his dog's) actions. Much like helmet laws, leash laws start from the presumption that citizens are dumb, insensitive to context, and in need of parenting. So, Fulton County would like to be my daddy, but can I say no?

I encourage all responsible dog owners who have harmless, non-agressive, well-trained dogs that respond immediately to voice commands to resist overly aggressive leash laws by practicing civil disobedience.

Civil disobedience is a violation of the law without any loss of respect for law and the other basic political institutions generally acknowledged to be fair and just. Speaking most generally, civil disobedience is that act which knowingly violates a law, committed in deference to a higher order (like natural rights), or in support of a cause greater than the actor himself (like liberty) and the law itself. Under John Rawls’ strict interpretation, civil disobedience is a public, nonviolent, conscientious yet political act contrary to law, usually done with the aim of bringing about a change in the law or policies of the government.

Civil disobedience is a form of political statement, an invitation for others to join in a just cause. Civil disobedience is deliberate lawlessness, and can be classified as either direct (by breaking the very law that is objectionable) or indirect (by breaking laws which are not objectionable, but which call attention to the wrong). Lastly, acts of civil disobedience must be conscientious, which generally means that one acts out of an honest and sincere conviction that what one is doing is the uniquely correct thing to do, no matter what the personal cost. This stipulation rules out the motives of private or personal gain, or malevolent emotion as primary factors. The actor’s willingness to suffer inconvenience, expense, threats, real danger and punishment helps to demonstrate that his purpose is to protest a greater social injustice or wrong and not to achieve some immediate gain for himself.

So, if you are a responsible dog owner, act on principle and release the hounds!!

Politics and the young man.

"Aristotle with a Bust of Homer" (1653),
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn

Something about the events of this past Tuesday brought to mind a wise passage in Aristotle's Ethics:

"Now each man judges well the things he knows, and of these he is a good judge. And so the man who has been educated in a subject is a good judge of that subject, and the man who has received an all-round education is a good judge in general. Hence a young man is not a proper hearer of lectures on political science; for he is inexperienced in the actions that occur in life, but its discussions start from these and are about these; and, further, since he tends to follow his passions, his study will be vain and unprofitable, because the end aimed at is not knowledge but action. And it makes no difference whether he is young in years or youthful in character; the defect does not depend on time, but on his living, and pursuing each successive object, as passion directs. For to such persons, as to the incontinent, knowledge brings no profit; but to those who desire and act in accordance with a rational principle knowledge about such matters will be of great benefit."

Or, as Ronald Reagan famously asserted regarding Walter Mondale, "I refuse to make my opponent's youth and inexperience an issue in this campaign." (Hat tip to Dr. Moore for the historical fact checking...)

Repeal the 17th.

Due to overwhelming support, this posting on the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has been moved to its own site. Please take a look at:

http://www.restorefederalism.org

Free speech

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Marines in Berkeley

Daily Show Full Episodes
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Political Humor
Joke of the Day

"If only there was an organization that was sworn to defend that free speech..."

(Video was sent to me this morning by this former student.)

"Hypocrisy"

The recent "scandal" involving Eliot Spitzer, the (now former) Governor of New York, calls for a bit of reflection. For readers who live outside the U.S. media bubble, Spitzer rose to prominence and power on his reputation as a crusader who fought to eradicate corruption, wherever it was found. He did this primarily in his previous elected position as New York's Attorney General.

According to the press, Spitzer did three things that are noteworthy: I. More than any other single individual, he helped advance the causes of shareholder control, and proper governance and oversight of corporations. II. He used public, vicious, personal attacks on specific individuals at these corporations as one tool for achieving these ends. III. He spent tens of thousands of dollars on prostitutes.

It has been noted in several articles that the individuals targeted by Spitzer were openly and vindictively gleeful at the revelation that Spitzer had spent huge sums of his personal money on high-priced hookers, and his subsequent resignation in shame. The American press, especially in New York, was quick to reflect not only this euphoric reaction, but also the commonly held belief on Wall Street that Spitzer's harsh tactics and degradation of women was demonstrable proof that his efforts to check corporate misconduct were invalid.

Say what? To understand this reasoning (that the governor's inclination to pay women for sex negates his anti-corruption work), you must comprehend the American view of integrity and hypocrisy.

America is a culture that craves consistency, and mistakenly equates this consistency to something like "integrity". We demand consistency in our leaders, in our foreign policy, and from our fellow citizens. We want consistency so badly that we presume it exists, even when it is plainly absent. We are not believers in Oscar Wilde's observation that "we are never more true to ourselves than when we are inconsistent". Quite to the contrary. For Americans, the opposite of consistency and integrity is hypocrisy. In fact, as Kenneth Johnson pointed out, in a culture where there are no shared values, the only sin is hypocrisy.

Consider this: cultural agreement on a foundational moral code (as in the "natural law" or "divine command" construction) provides individuals with a form of security. Life is more predictable when we can make certain presumptions about how each of us "should" behave, and "ought to" live, as indicated by our shared moral code. Conversely, in a society where this shared understanding does not exist - such as in multicultural, secular, western, liberal democracies - we feel a collective sense of instability because we do not have a framework to predict the behavior of the man standing next to us. The only way stability can be reclaimed is if we demand consistency relative to itself and live our lives equating consistency to morality and personal integrity.

It is for these reasons that in America, a person who says one thing and does another is seen as the incarnation of evil. We tolerate a great deal in this country, from prostitutes to white-collar thieves, but we will not tolerate a man who is inconsistent. We see the inconsistent man as the embodiment of randomness and volatility in our world. We see him as the threat that must be put down. Without a shared moral code, we are not a culture that can say, "Spitzer is a man who did wrong when he used a woman by treating her purely as an object. He did wrong when he attacked individuals harshly and personally. He did good by fighting corruption." No, in our effort to establish certainty and regularity where there never is any (inside one person), what we say is, "If we voted this man into office, that is because he was a predictable force for good. If he did something bad, he must therefore be a predictable force for evil. Therefore, everything he ever did was wrong."

To complicate matters is our rather blunt use of the word "hypocrite", a term that has become our shorthand for "inconsistent" or even "unclean". To be technical about it, "hypocrisy" is not "saying one thing and doing another", but believing one way and directing another. Put a different way: if Spitzer believed in his heart that engaging in prostitution was wrong, but did it anyway, his behavior is merely a demonstration of remarkable personal weakness, but not hypocrisy. However, if he believed in his heart that prostitution was acceptable, but spoke out publicly against it, then this could be actual hypocrisy.

The obvious problem - the missing variable - in all cases is that we do not know what any other man really believes in his heart. In order to get away with our use of the word "hypocrite", we presume that Spitzer's actions were in line with his beliefs, while at the same time knowing that every day we each do things that go against the convictions we hold most dear. As Betsy Holmes likes to remind me, when other people violate the moral order, it's because they are bad people. When I do it, I've got pretty good reasons.

Let's be more careful casting stones, shall we?

Superdelegates

The painting to the left is: "Freedom of Speech" (The Saturday Evening Post, February 20, 1943), by Norman Rockwell. An earlier study for this print is below.

As I suggested earlier, there has been a shameful void of both worthwhile reporting and relfective analysis during this perpetual presidential election cycle. I am thankful for the articles that buck this trend, such as the piece by Stanley Fish appearing in The New York Times this morning. The full text can be found here. The article looks at the history, moral standing and political requirements of the Democratic Party's "superdelegates". Here's a sample:


... when the group NoSuperDelegates urges the DNC “to not seat the Super-Delegates . . . and instead nominate the candidate leading in the delegate count,” what it is really urging is the jettisoning of the rules because its members fear the outcome that following them might produce.

Of course, they don’t see it that way. They see themselves engaged in a noble cause: “We are urging Americans to simply stand up for what is right and let democracy work the way it’s intended to.”

Whose intention and whose democracy would that be? Not the founding fathers, who were more fearful of democracy in 1787 than the Democratic elders are today. James Madison complained in Federalist 10 that “measures are too often decided . . . by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.” Democracies, he continued, have ever been “spectacles of turbulence and contention.”

Alexander Hamilton was even harsher in his judgment. Replying to the assertion that “pure democracy” would be “the most perfect government,” he declared, “no position is politics is more false” because “the ancient democracies, in which the people themselves deliberated, never possessed one feature of good government.” Indeed, he concluded, “their very character is tyranny.”

Federal laws exist to ensure transparent and orderly elections that adhere to certain principles. This I get. What is not clear to me is why some (not Stanley Fish) expect a similar, constitution-level standard of justice governing internal party processes. The two-party system that dominates our country today is not addressed in the U.S. Constitution, so while the method that a party uses to nominate a contender is fair game for criticism, only the members of that party can determine the party rules, and evaluate whether or not it is a "good" process for their members (and, I hope, for the country as a whole).

The fight over Superdelegates is interesting because it highlights an argument often heard in this country: Rules that have resulted in acceptable outcomes are good rules, but rules that have resulted - or may result - in unacceptable outcomes (the Electoral College in 2000, for example) must be discarded. This, clearly, makes the whole idea of pre-existing rules a) meaningless, b) dependent upon each individual's willingness to compare long-term consequences against short-term results, and c) dependent on each individual's current preference for things "acceptable" or "unacceptable".

One wonders if we are still a country with a long vision for stability.

WFB

I was saddened to see that William F. Buckley, Jr. was found dead earlier today. Whether or not one agreed with his positions, one cannot help but be impressed by his vision, his intellect, and his capacity to articulate both.

The National Review Online has thorough coverage of his passing, and here is a link to the NYTimes' article.

The Failure of Normality

Especially in this election-cycle-with-no end, the U.S. media should be faulted (and severely beaten) for failing in almost every circumstance to provide the general public with any historical context, any candidate accountability, any meaningful analysis, or coverage of any policy substance. It is truly shameful.

One article excepted from my Brutal Beatings List is a piece called, "The Failure of Normality: The unhappy lessons of the Thompson campaign", written by Andrew Ferguson and printed in the February 4, 2008 issue of The Weekly Standard.

Ferguson provides a very interesting overview of how and why Fred Thompson's campaign collapsed after starting off with such high expectations. The article does this by describing how candidates used to campaign for the presidency in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and argues that Thompson was a man out of time (and thus was doomed to fail). Thompson is here portrayed as unwilling to swap out his personal sensibilities and more traditional view of democracy for the modern (apparent) requirements of sound bites and non-stop campaigning.

He was a different kind of candidate but not an incompetent one. Indeed, his finest moment came in a debate before the Iowa caucuses, when the moderator asked the assembled candidates for a show of hands if they believed human activity caused climate change.

"Well, do you want to give me a minute to answer that?" Thompson said. When the moderator said she didn't, he said: "Well, then I'm not going to answer it. You want a show of hands, and I'm not going to give it to you."

The moderator looked as though Thompson had suddenly sprouted daffodils from his ears. So did his fellow candidates. After a stunned silence, they all courageously announced their refusal to show hands, too. They looked like the Little Rascals, hitching up their britches and flexing their biceps after Alfalfa clocked the neighborhood bully.

Ferguson also addresses the most oft heard criticism of Thompson, that he lacked "fire in the belly" - whatever that means. The article accepts this criticism as being accurate AND historically appropriate (if Thompson had been campaigning in the 1890s). Ferguson does a thorough job of describing the core democratic belief in the unseemliness of seeking power over other men, but if you've read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, then you got the basic thrust of the argument mirrored there:

"The major problem - ONE of the major problems, for there are several - one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem."

Well, yes. Yes, they are. I think I'm done with politics for the year.

** Photo above is the film representation of Galactic President Zaphod Beeblebrox (a character from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and the point of the quote above). **

Life mimics art.

If you've seen the movie "Election", I'm pretty sure that commentary is not required here...