Happy Independence Day

Well, Calvin Coolidge seems to be popular today, on account of his thoughts at the 150th birthday of the Declaration of Independence. Jeff Jacoby discusses President Coolidge's speech:

Since ancient times there had been many revolutions . . . What makes America's founding extraordinary, observed the 30th president, is that it was the first to be based not on blood or soil but on a set of philosophical ideas about the nature of mankind and therefore of government. Other nations have their deepest roots in ethnicity, tribal loyalty, or military conquest. America, uniquely, was dedicated to a proposition - to the fundamental, self-evident truth that all men are created equal and the political ideas that flow from that truth. . . .

Jeff Goldstein has some thoughts on the Constitution today, apparently prompted by a very interesting note from Dr. Larry Arn:

The 4th of July cover article of Time magazine claims that the Constitution is irrelevant.

Frightening. . . .

The Constitution does not allow us to do whatever we want to do. In the words of James Madison, the Constitution was framed out of the belief that “it is the reason, alone, of the public, that ought to control and regulate the government. The passions ought to be controlled and regulated by the government.”

The genius of the Constitution lies in its having a definite meaning on the fundamentals – that every individual has rights, that the people are sovereign, and that the governmental powers must remain separated – while leaving wide latitude to local government, or the people themselves, on issues not specifically addressed in the Constitution. . . .

Liberty. Equality. Self-government.

If the Fourth of July is a celebration of these things, it is a celebration of the Constitution as much as the Declaration of Independence. No constitution in history has proven itself more deeply committed to these principles, and no nation has been more richly blessed in return.

The basic truth within the Constitution is that the government cannot have limitless power, for the simple reason that government is made up of people. A Constitution with no definite meaning gives free reign to the passions of those people within and without the government. A Constitution with a meaning honored and obeyed becomes a guardian of all people, for it sustains a government that is strong within its defined powers but limited in order to protect the liberty and equality of citizens.Instead of scoffing at those Americans concerned that their federal government has overrun its limits in the name of energy and modernity, perhaps Time should consider what an American President said about the principles of the Declaration and the Constitution on the 150th anniversary of July 4th, 1776:

"It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers."

- Calvin Coolidge
July 5, 1926

Read the whole thing. Follow the link to President Coolidge's full speech.  And Goldstein discusses in another post some philosophies which threaten our independence from government tyranny. For example:

The loss of a controlling idea about how interpretation works — how it comes to count as interpretation in the first place — has led us down the path where meaning is determined not by a true appeal to the foundational documents intended to constrain the power of a centralized authority, but rather by a judicial oligarchy, where one vote, determined by nothing more than partisan ideology, a felicity with signifiers, and a supposed unshakable fidelity to prior rulings, takes the place of our Constitution and Declaration as the law of the land for 300 million + people. . . .

We shan’t go down without a fight. Once this country is unrecognizable as this country, the time will come once again to declare our independence. . . .

Or, maybe we could start now to educate children once again about how our country began. There are even some resources available for TV. Remarkably, the token conservative in this round-table, George Will, is allowed to finish his thoughts. He did a good job of defending the Constitution.

Gay marriage - A simple issue? Really?

When I was in elementary school, there was exactly one child among two classes my age, 50 or more children, whose parents were divorced. Well, for a few months there was a second girl, who became my best friend, whose mother was divorced. She and her mother moved suddenly, and we never got a chance to say good-bye. There were no children in my class who were living with deliberately single mothers. Some things have changed since then.

Changes in technology (birth control) and law (no-fault divorce, etc.) decreased the importance of marriage in society. And theories from the Left have knocked marriage first one way and then the other. In my lifetime, marriage has been portrayed by the Left as a meaningless piece of paper, as slavery, as an expression of patriarchy and authoritarianism,  as an institution within which any woman who has sex is being raped, as an arrangement of temporary convenience, as in "starter marriages", and as many other things. Lots of people have felt lots of pain as a result of these various theories. NOW, marriage is suddenly a constitutional right. Until the Left comes up with another goal.

People are starting to talk about some of the legal problems which are posed by same-sex marriage. Like what do you do with the "presumption of paternity" in the case of a lesbian marriage? Or annulment based upon a non-consummated marriage? The law books must be full of wording that will need to be changed, all because of the insistence that the definition of ONE WORD be changed.   What about the Rush Limbaugh-Elton John Compromise?

Gay marriage seems to me to pose the danger of making marriage less attractive to heterosexual men, especially in "at-risk communities" where young men already think of "Sperm Donor"as an ideal family role.

For one thing, the NYT reported that about half of gay married men in Massachusetts do not consider sexual fidelity to be particularly important. Understandably. So, if gay and straight marriage are "totally the same", why shouldn't straight men expect that their wives will be cool with hubby having sex with other people? If your girlfriend doesn't like that idea, why get married and face conflict over your desire for other women? Is there any value to the idea of marriage as a "civilizing bridge between the sexes", requiring both partners to rein in their natural inclinations for the benefit of the partnership?  Should the word "marriage" be made so broad that such social responsibilities become less obvious?

And then there's the recent liberal theme that fathers are, at best, second-rate mothers. Never mind increased pathologies among youths in fatherless homes. Or "daddy-hunger" among young children. Signs of "daddy hunger" such as a child having to be "pried from the leg" of a male day care worker every day are interpreted not as signs of distress over the absence of a father, but as evidence that the child-care worker makes a fine father substitute. When a boy suggests that his two mothers can find a dad to move in with them, it's just "cute". Mentioning those phenomena in a concerned way will soon be "hate speech" directed at a protected minority.

The Left has characterized the idea that children do better if their fathers are involved in their lives as irrational bigotry. President Obama was apparently totally off-base when he tried to convince young black men to take more responsibility for their children.  Sometimes I wonder if the President's opposition to same-sex marriage might be partly due to his difficult experiences as a community organizer in Chicago, dealing with a culture dominated almost totally by women (with the men often entering gangs instead of staying with the mothers of their children).

If fathers get no respect for any unique contribution as a parent, WHY NOT be the sperm donor for a lesbian couple instead of marrying? Or brag about your "baby mommas" raising your kids with their own mothers (since two women make the ideal parenting team).  This would be in line with some old British/American feminist and socialist positions which seem to be making a come-back now.  Though limiting the number of male children is not being pushed currently.

The feminist position on sex education remains:

What is important here is to separate sex from procreation

And hence, from parenthood. As liberal policies have done in the South Side of Chicago.

The push to encourage acceptance of gay and bisexual relationships as "normative" also seems to be having an effect in "at risk" populations. A friend who works at a Job Corps reported that a very high percentage of the students, upwards of 40%, self-identified as gay or bisexual, with a high percentage of those claiming to be bisexual. I am bracing for the liberal push for "bisexual marriage rights".

During the relatively short period in ancient Greece when male homosexual relationships were revered as "purer" than those with women, because there were no concerns of marriage or inheritance, bisexual behavior increased dramatically. And the independence and status of women were also reduced in Athens during this "golden age", with sequestration and veiling of upper-class wives. Prostitutes had more freedom than other women. But at that time, marriage and homosexual relationships were thought of separately.

 Who knows what bisexual "family relationships" will be promoted in the near future by the "marriage is a constitutional right" crowd? Whatever they are, they will not fit the ideal model demonstrated by large-scale studies, which show that the best environment for growing children is in a stable, low-conflict home with both biological parents. (As far as I know, most of the smaller comparative studies with same-sex parents compared those families to heterosexual families with divorced and re-married or co-habiting  parents, due to the small number of children raised from infancy in a same-sex household).

I was not particularly surprised that many young women in the Job Corps would claim to be bisexual, as more information is coming out recently concerning the "fluidity" of female sexual orientation. Plus all the stories about women in Hollywood and elsewhere who seem to change their sexual orientation, and pornography directed at men which feature lesbian sex.

 But my friend said that there was also a high percentage of young men who claimed to be bisexual. Interesting how the old hard-left theme that sexual orientation is just a matter of "social conditioning" is now making a comeback, after the Left spent years trying to convince us that sexual orientation is totally immutable. The truth is likely somewhere in the middle, with many women being more "flexible" in their sexual attractions. More information needed. Exciting, unsettling times ahead.

The Supreme Court and the Second Amendment

I wrote about some interesting coincidences concerning the confirmation hearings for Elena Kagan and the Supreme Court's McDonald decision here.

 Captain Ed has an interesting take on the decision - noting Jocob Scollum's observation that four Supreme Court Justices argued against the Constitution and against individual rights in general:

The decision reveals a fundamental antipathy on the part of liberal jurists to the clear language of the Constitution. While we celebrate the fact that five Justices got it right, we should be very worried that the other four still would rather search for penumbras and emanations for their own idea of social engineering than in actually reading the clear text of the document they swore to uphold.

Video featuring Otis McDonald, who took the case to the Supreme Court. Why would Chicago politicians rather call in the National Guard in response to horrific crime rates than allow law-abiding citizens (well, other than themselves and their friends) to have guns? "This hurts me to my heart".

Justice for All: DOJ and the New Black Panthers

Wretchard:

The salient thing about J. Christian Adams’s accusation that the Obama administration deliberately let off the New Black Panther Party after it engaged in voter intimidation is that, if true, it constitutes a pure exercise in the abuse of power. The other wrongs it represents — the perversion of the electoral process, the violation of civil rights — are secondary. The most serious allegation in the whole affair is that the certain officials countenanced a crime because they wanted to. The most concentrated expression of tyranny is malice in the service of caprice. . . .


The greatest damage that political correctness has inflicted on society is to make each of us forget that underneath the accidents of color, nationality and creed, that all of us are men. By dividing humanity into hyphenated buckets, each sequestered in its hate, the puppet masters have managed to set one against the other so thoroughly that the sharpers, wheeler-dealers and fixers can operate undisturbed. In a world where every one thinks of himself as white, black, gay, straight — we have forgotten that the real distinction is between who holds power and who does not. Nothing else matters. The Black Panthers and the three men who are suspected of killing Robert Wone are not impotent underdogs. On the contrary, they wield far more power than we, in our normal lives, could ever dispose of. God grant we never meet them, for if we do, we meet them alone. . . . .

Update II - Ace's comment seems to fit with Wretchard's statement:  "Here's the sort of guy Eric Holder perilously sprang free. "   And Ace is talking about perils to civil rights law - not just to perils against innocent people. Read the whole post and watch the video:

You want freedom?  You're going to have to kill some crackers.  You're going to have to kill some of their babies. 

This is the same guy speaking out in the voter intimidation video presented to the DOJ, just to be clear.

"Social Justice" sometimes means the eradication of "equality before the law".  Our Department of Justice does not appear to believe in equality before the law.  Transforming America, indeed. As Wretchard suggests, if the DOJ acted as it appears to have acted, God help us.

The whistleblower in the dismissal of the New Black Panther case is now being slimed by the DOJ. Typical. Whistleblowers often suffer massive hardship for the rest of us, with little or no thanks.

Might there be a connection between the relative lack of media coverage of the New Black Panther case dismissal and the outing of David Weigel's Journolist posts in order to get him fired? He seems to be the only person at the two major Eastern dailies who mentioned the case.

UPDATE:  The whistleblower explains why he was upset enough to resign.  Also check out the powerful video, an interview of a civil rights attorney who witnessed the intimidation by members of the New Black Panther Party.  He's a self-identified "old liberal", sort of like Dennis Prager - worked on the election campaigns of Robert Kennedy, Jimmy Carter and the first black man to run for governor in Mississippi. "New liberals" are different. They tend to think of "group rights" and "social justice" (which means different things to different people) before "individual rights" and "justice under the law".

Book Banning by US Government?

Following up on yesterday's post, the Supreme Court Nominee, Elena Kagan, has argued unsuccessfully for a government statute which could, theoretically, be used to ban political books. Audio of the argument. AllahPundit does not seem to think that this argument, which was part of her job, necessarily reflects her own views, although he thought her performance was weak. Reason has more details, plus good questions to ask the nominee.

Other fun facts: She doesn't respect the current confirmation process for Supreme Court Justices. Makes sense. But she liked the Bork hearings, including, evidently, the vicious, totally unsubstantiated slanders by Ted Kennedy, which led to the current situation. She's apparently not a knee-jerk liberal, though she is extremely liberal on some issues. Most informed observers think she will easily get through confirmation hearings.

Uh-Oh. Attorney General Evasive about Causes of Terrorism

Eric Holder seems to be part of the Reality-Based Community. His level of uncertainty about the causes of terrorism and the best ways to combat terrorism may be higher than Janet Napolitano's.

But there is one exception to this type of uncertainty among the elite in our country: Dennis Prager:

The Left's inability to identify the religious beliefs of Islamic terrorists and instead ascribe their murders of Americans to the terrorists' psychological tensions and economic problems — while at the same time utterly certain that conservative white Americans have only the most vile motives — is an expression of the Left's failure to recognize and confront real evil.

Just remember this: If Shahzad had not been identified as the would-be bomber, the mainstream (i.e., liberal) news media and leading Democrats would have told us repeatedly that a white male — surely a conservative white male — was the Times Square terrorist, and that we should therefore be looking suspiciously at our fellow Americans on the Right, especially those attending tea parties. For while liberals claim not to know the motives of Muslim terrorists, they are always certain of conservatives' motives: racism, sexism, homophobia and xenophobia.

When, one day, the Left exits from history's stage, its epitaph will read: "Those who do not understand evil will not understand good."

UPDATE: Tim Blair links Mark Steyn:

Listening to Attorney General Holder, one is tempted to modify Trotsky:
You may not be interested in Islam but Islam is interested in you. Islam smells weakness at the heart of the West. The post-World War II order is dying: The European Union's decision to toss a trillion dollars to prop up a Greek economic model that guarantees terminal insolvency is merely the latest manifestation of the chronic combination of fiscal profligacy and demographic decline in the West at twilight. Islam is already the biggest supplier of new Europeans and new Canadians, and the fastest-growing demographic in the Western world.
Therefore, it thinks it not unreasonable to shape the character of those societies – not by blowing up buildings and airplanes, but by determining the nature of their relationship to Islam.
For example, the very same day that Eric Holder was doing his "Islam? What Islam?" routine at the Capitol, the Organization of the Islamic Conference was tightening its hold on the U.N. Human Rights Council – actually, make that the U.N. "Human Rights" Council. The OIC is the biggest voting bloc at the U.N., and it succeeded in getting its slate of candidates elected to the so-called "human rights" body – among them the Maldives, Qatar, Malaysia, Mauritania and Libya. The last, elected to the HRC by 80 percent of the U.N. membership, is, of course, a famous paragon of human rights, but the other, "moderate" Muslim nations share the view that Islam, in both its theological and political components, should be beyond discussion. And they will support the U.N.'s rapid progress toward, in effect, the imposition of a global apostasy law that removes Islam from public discourse.
Attorney General Holder seems to be operating an advance pilot program of his own, but he's not alone. Also last week, the head of Canada's intelligence service testified to the House of Commons about hundreds of "second- or third-generation Canadians" who are "relatively well integrated" "economically and socially" but who have become so "very very disenchanted" with "the way we want to structure our society" that they have developed "strong links to homelands" that are "in distress."
Homelands such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.
Hmm. If you're wondering what those countries might have in common, keep wondering. No words beginning with "I-" and ending with "-slam" passed the director's lips. If the head of the Crown's intelligence service has narrowed his concerns about "disenchanted" "second- and third-generations Canadians" to any demographic group in particular, evidently it's classified information and can't be disclosed in public.
The U.N. elections are a big victory for the Organization of the Islamic Conference. By the way, to my liberal friends who say, "Hey, what's the big deal about the Organization of the Islamic Conference? Lighten up, man," try rolling around your tongue the words "Organization of the Christian Conference." Would you be quite so cool with that? Fifty-seven Prime Ministers and Presidents who get together and vote as a bloc in international affairs? Or would that be a theocratic affront to secular sensibilities? The casual acceptance of the phrase "the Muslim world" – ("Mr. Obama's now-famous speech to the Muslim world" – The New York Times) – implicitly defers to the political ambitions of Islam. And, if there is a "Muslim world," what are its boundaries? Forty years ago, the OIC began with mainly Middle Eastern members plus Indonesia and a couple more. By the Nineties, former Soviet Central Asia had signed on, plus Albania, Mozambique, Guyana and various others. In 2005, Russia was admitted to "observer" membership.

Liars: Why Government Regulation Fails

The recent outrageous dereliction of duty by the SEC, and the transparent effort to hide the worst failures from the public, is entirely predictable where government has a great deal of power over business. Over-regulation, particularly regulation intended to favor some businesses over others, predictably leads both government officials and business people to commit fraud. And more regulation also tends to favor big businesses over small ones, unless the small ones have direct political connections.

An important piece in the Wall Street Journal: An Economy of Liars

When government and business collude,

it's called crony capitalism.

Expect more of this from the financial reforms

contemplated in Washington.

Free markets depend on truth telling. Prices must reflect the valuations of consumers; interest rates must be reliable guides to entrepreneurs allocating capital across time; and a firm's accounts must reflect the true value of the business. Rather than truth telling, we are becoming an economy of liars. The cause is straightforward: crony capitalism. . . .

Public choice theory has identified the root causes of regulatory failure as the capture of regulators by the industry being regulated. Regulatory agencies begin to identify with the interests of the regulated rather than the public they are charged to protect. In a paper for the Federal Reserve's Jackson Hole Conference in 2008, economist Willem Buiter described "cognitive capture," by which regulators become incapable of thinking in terms other than that of the industry. On April 5 of this year, The Wall Street Journal chronicled the revolving door between industry and regulator in "Staffer One Day, Opponent the Next."

Congressional committees overseeing industries succumb to the allure of campaign contributions, the solicitations of industry lobbyists, and the siren song of experts whose livelihood is beholden to the industry. The interests of industry and government become intertwined and it is regulation that binds those interests together. Business succeeds by getting along with politicians and regulators. And vice-versa through the revolving door.

We call that system not the free-market, but crony capitalism. It owes more to Benito Mussolini than to Adam Smith. . .

Deregulation is not some kind of libertarian mantra but an absolute necessity if we are to exit crony capitalism.

Read the whole thing. See if he can convince you.

One definition of "Social Justice"

Social Justice: Abandoning "equality before the law" in favor of legal decisions intended to produce equal outcomes for members of "protected classes".

Producing results like these.

Because we would not want to suggest that there might be reasons that black students in some neighborhoods actually exhibit behavior different from their white or Asian counterparts. That might make some people feel bad.  Far better to increase racial tensions to the point of violence in an effort to enforce equal treatment of groups, rather than equal treatment of individuals.

Then we can introduce a big, ineffective, court-mandated federal program to fix each problem created by the quest for "social justice".  Leading to more government jobs.  So it's all good.  Civil society retreats as government expands, but who needs civil society?

Why don't Canadian banks fail like American ones?

Interesting article. And here I thought Canada was supposed to be a bastion of oppressive, progressive "compassion." Which it now is on many social issues. But it seems Canadians are pretty hard-nosed and banker-friendly when it comes to mortages. Perhaps their success during the Great Depression taught them something: No mortgage tax deductions, no loans to poor credit risks required by the government in order to keep your "good guy" rating, mortgage insurance coupled with realistic assessments of the value of properties, etc. And foreclosure doesn't get the homeowner off the hook financially. Cruel. Heartless. At least it seems that way until a major world financial crisis comes. Then these same old-fashioned, boring, understandable, conservative, cruel, unfair, elitist policies seem benevolent. And the progressive "compassionate" mortgage regulations in the United States start to seem cruel. What good are "compassionate" regulations which become cruel in hard times?

The conservative pro-banking approach in Canada has led to higher rates of home ownership, more stable home prices, more home equity among borrowers and far lower rates of foreclosure than in the United States. It's sort of like a paradox. But not really. Because the Canadian system is apparently still pretty much based on financial honesty and realism. It's not based on people getting special deals from banks via their favorite politicians and bureaucrats. And it's apparently not based on certain favored financial institutions getting government subsidies or special, fancy arrangements approved to compensate for the extra "compassionate" risks encouraged or required by government policies.

Irresponsible Mortgage Lending: Controlling the Narrative

Andrew Cuomo, now the Attorney General of New York, is prosecuting Bank of America for fraud in connection with the financial panic and recession. But he helped set banks up for failure in an earlier job as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under Bill Clinton.

It isn't entirely clear to me who deserves more blame: government officials pressuring the private sector into making it easy for people with poor credit to buy houses or Wall Street hot shots getting fancy with "monetary instruments" to bundle risky loans with others. With these fancy arrangements, banks would feel more comfortable complying with government pressure to loan to "underprivileged communities". Banks really got into the spirit of things eventually, making insane loans like the one for the home next to us, bigger than ours, sold to two nice young agricultural field workers (at least one here illegally, the other on disability). This house is now awaiting auction after foreclosure, last we heard.

This crisis developed largely because many people, at all levels of society and even outside the country, were eager to take advantage of promises inherent in the myth that we would have both perpetually increasing home values and home ownership available for all. So there is plenty of blame to go around. But the myth was almost totally engineered by respected Ivy League types in government and finance. We need to be careful not to assume that "education" always confers wisdom, or that "smart" equals "wise".

I do get irritated that the officers of Fannie and Freddie (often Democratic officials sent over to make some big bucks between government jobs, plus retired congressmen) received much less calumny than officers of banks without such direct government connections. Some (besides Franklin Raines) engaged in accounting practices similar to those which led to prosecution in private enterprises like Enron, in order to pad their own bonuses. Like Jim Johnson - one of three people first chosen to vet possible VPs for Candidate Obama (replaced when some of his "ethics problems" became noteworthy, though he still remained active in the campaign). Astonishing. And then there's Jamie Gorelick, part of the 9/11 commission (she should have been a witness, instead, given her substantive role in constructing the "Gorelick Wall" to limit information flow between intelligence agencies.

Canadian banks were not similarly pressured by their government (and by government-funded institutions like Freddie and Fannie) to make risky mortgage loans. Canadian banks weathered the crisis quite well.

That bane of liberal academics Jeff Goldstein writes about the ability of Cuomo and his friends to deflect attention from their own role in the financial meltdown:

Naturally, political animals like Cuomo will look for the easy target to scapegoat. The problem is when we allow them to get away with it — to, in essence, re-craft the narrative to insulate them while casting about for places to lay blame.

. . . the manufacturing of consent — of an agreed upon narrative enforced and patrolled by the group in power that society concedes to be “truthful” based on its having forged a majority consensus — is an ever-more desirous option: not only does it circumvent the need for internal logic or the objective assessment of fact in making its implied argument; but it is relatively cheap, in that it relies almost entirely on rhetoric — a commodity most easily marshaled by those in power to reinforce the status quo. . . .

. . . the facts can sometimes get in the way of telling a good story — and we can’t have something like reality nudging its nose under the Utopian tent of progressivism, can we?

Follow the links for a little bit of very interesting education involving facts.

Remember: "Consensus" is the only moral refuge for people who have become educated enough to believe that "truth" is only in the eye of the beholder.

Side Note: One thing Cuomo's disastrous term as head of HUD points out is how often major policies are now set by appointed officials rather than elected ones.

Strong-arm tactics in Copenhagen and Washington

Powerline:

Global warming alarmist Stephen Schneider gave a press briefing in Copenhagen today. No one was impolite enough to remind Schneider of the days when he claimed the world was about to be destroyed by global cooling, but Phelim McAleer. . . showed up to ask a question about Climategate.

Schneider's response, suggesting that the emails that were leaked by a whistleblower might have been "edited," was wholly disingenuous. A considerable number of the emails were Schneider's, so if they were somehow inauthentic, he certainly could have said so. . . . Which means that Schneider had nothing whatsoever to say in response to McAleer's question.

Except to call security and make McAleer's cameraman stop filming, even though the event was ostensibly a press briefing open to the media. . . .

Global warming hysteria isn't science, it's politics. And totalitarian politics at that.

"If only the UN were this tough on terrorists." Somebody feels their will to power being thwarted.

More strong-arm tactics - proposed EPA regulations designed to intimidate business into supporting cap and trade:

The easiest way to get rich is to legislate yourself some money. P.J. O'Rourke.

(Registration for videos free.) Past energy boondoggles outlined. Even a straight energy tax would be better than cap-and-trade, but provides much less opportunity for graft.

Shadow Conference in Copenhagen: The conference concerning the science.

The Pilgrims, Religious Intentions and the Rejection of Feudalism

Further to this post, some interesting bits of history about the Pilgrims:

From (Jewish) Michael Medved, some thoughts on the Pilgrims and the religious nature of America:

Most children learn that the Mayflower settlers came to the New World to escape persecution and to establish religious freedom. But the early colonists actually pursued purity, not tolerance, and sought to build fervent, faith-based utopias, not secular regimes that consigned religion to a secondary role. The distinctive circumstances that allowed these fiery believers of varied denominations to cooperate in the founding of a new nation help to explain America's contradictory religious traditions — as simultaneously the most devoutly Christian society in the Western world, and the country most accommodating to every shade of exotic belief and practice.

The communal system to which the Pilgrims had agreed before they left for the New World was likely framed in terms of Christian fellowship and sharing, but the particulars of their contract also reflected feudal thinking.

William Bradford's abandonment of communalism in the face of famine, which went against the contract he had signed, was a sort of intellectual breakthrough - an abandonment of European feudalism.

July 1620

The Pilgrims' contract with their financial backers, the London Merchant Adventurers Company, included conditions of seven years of joint stock and partnership and communal property, followed by a division and release from obligations . . . . A version of feudalism dominated for the first seven years.

Britain and continental Europe groaned under feudalism's remnants and its communal farming. The Lord of the Manor controlled his peasants -- told them where, when, and what they could do, and how they could do it. (Does that sound like some people we know in 2009?)

From old-world feudalism came the seeds of famine.

September 1621

The autumn harvest and hunt. The First Thanksgiving. Grand. Glorious. A product of the friendship and peace treaty with the impressive Wampanoag Sachem (chief) Massasoit and his people. A welcome respite from the hardship of that first winter, when half the Mayflower passengers died. And yes, there was turkey. Bradford wrote, "... there was great store of wild turkeys ..."

Were they now on easy street? Hardly. Communal farming brought discouragement and strife the next year.

A Meager Harvest, 1622
Now the welcome time of harvest approached, in which all had their hungry bellies filled. But it arose to a little, in comparison of a full years supply ...

"That they might not still thus languish in misery," 1623

Bradford wrote of the colony's distress at continuing famine:

All this while no supply was heard of, neither knew they when they might expect any. So they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery.

The governor faced a choice. The colony would fail under seven years of communal farming, and the investors in London would not be repaid. The Pilgrims would become just another failed English colony, all memory of them to vanish.

Or -- find a better way, grow food, survive, pay their contractual debts. Bradford found that better way: He assigned each family a parcel of land to farm on their own.

Transformational, this paradigm shift. While the old world lay shackled by feudal communal farming, the new world broke free from feudalism's constraints.

Read the whole thing.

Because of the isolated circumstances of the Pilgrims, the negative effects of feudalism were seen in a rapid and stark manner. In long-established civilizations, it may take longer for the negative effects of excessive control over people's lives by government to lead to grave danger.

Feudalism was first established, in part, in order to provide protection from attack by marauders by "the Lord of the Manor" to the people living on his lands - theoretically, at least. There was a legitimate desire for security on the part of the people, and a desire on the part of the aristocracy to maintain power and wealth through the promise of protection.

The bargain typically went bad for the peasantry long before it went bad for the aristocracy. Yet the desire among "common people" to establish systems similar in some ways to feudalism persists, even when the powerful "aristocracy" is a governing class in a relatively free society. People want security. It's natural. It's important to keep in mind, however, that increasing our security nearly always means limiting our liberty. And then, sometimes, our security diminishes, too.

We need to think about how we balance these two values in various facets of life: Many people, for example, willingly give up a lot of personal freedom to provide security for small children. Little kids can really tie you down. But in other facets of life, liberty and flexibility may be more important in the long run than security.

Ironically, when people (adults) feel too secure about the larger society's ability to protect and care for them and/or about the larger society's ability to cover for their shortcomings, things start to fall apart.

From Ancient Greece to the U.S. Constitution

A very short course in the philosophies concerning political power which underly the Constitution of the United States of America. Also includes a few comments on the practical application of those philosophies and other philosophies regarding power, relevant to our current political situation.

This little piece gets down to basics about the choices facing us at this time.

Art and a Philosopher's Support for Roman Polanski

Ann Althouse challenges Bernard-Henri Lévy to defend his call for the release of Roman Polanski on philosophical grounds:

Do you assert that an artist ought to receive special treatment? Would an ingenious Nazi deserve to live out his life in peace? What does the special treatment of artists have to do with democracy? Explain what ingeniousness, filmmaking, and democracy have to do with your proposed rule.

Bernard-Henri Lévy, you present yourself as a philosopher. I would like to honor philosophy. Back up your petition with a philosophical argument that we can understand and critique.

IN THE COMMENTS: Peter Hoh said:

So in Bernard-Henri Lévy's world, there are common terrorists. One must presume that some other terrorists are uncommon. Perhaps some are extraordinary. I wonder how one can tell the difference?

Surely, the 9/11 attacks were uncommon. In fact, they were ingenious.

Let's not forget what the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen said on September 17, 2001:

... Stockhausen... called the attack on the World Trade Center ''the greatest work of art that is possible in the whole cosmos.'' Extending the analogy, he spoke of human minds achieving ''something in one act'' that ''we couldn't even dream of in music,'' in which ''people practice like crazy for 10 years, totally fanatically, for a concert, and then die.'' Just imagine, he added: ''You have people who are so concentrated on one performance, and then 5,000 people are dispatched into eternity, in a single moment. I couldn't do that. In comparison with that, we're nothing as composers.''

So, Bernard-Henri Lévy, by your standard, we should leave Osama Bin Laden alone?

Read the whole thing. Just for the sake of clarity.

Glenn Reynolds:

. . . the real argument is that as one of the creative elite, Polanski is supposed to enjoy a sort of droit du seigneur — but if you come right out and say that, the peasants will get angry.

Teddy Roosevelt and the Progressives

Maybe some of today's progressives aren't as innovative that they thought. An episode in history that's not covered in detail in most high school history textbooks:

During his post-presidency presidential campaign, Teddy Roosevelt campaigned for more federal power and more direct democracy. (Wonder where Ross Perot came up with his "vote on the issues from home" ideas?) Power is attractive to politicians. Especially to those who are good on the bully pulpit.

Why liberals and conservatives talk past each other

A Basic Conflict of Visions

Glenn Reynolds recommends sending New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman a link to this dynamite video by Bill Whittle. The video starts out with a discussion of A Conflict of Visions by Thomas Sowell.

Maybe by thinking about the video and doing some related reading, we will better understand the basic differences in world view which often cause liberals and conservatives to talk past each other.

Case Study: Thomas Friedman

Well, do I think I'd be able to "connect" with Thomas Friedman if I really understood his underlying "vision"? ? ? There's some fascinating information at the links below:

The reason that Glen Reynolds recommends the video above to Thomas Friedman is that the latter has just written a piece extolling the advantages of an enlightened autocracy. The current regime in China in particular.

Watching both the health care and climate/energy debates in Congress, it is hard not to draw the following conclusion: There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today.

Some conservatives and libertarians are alarmed. Uncle Jimbo fisks Friedman's piece.

Others think that the piece confirms the soft, benevolent "despotic impulse" lurking in current climate change and health care legislation. Jonah Goldberg:

I cannot begin to tell you how this is exactly the argument that was made by American fans of Mussolini in the 1920s. . . . This is the argument for an "economic dictatorship" pushed by Stuart Chase and the New Dealers. It's the dream of Herbert Croly and a great many of the Progressives.

I have no idea why I still have the capacity to be shocked by such things. A few years ago, during the worst part of the Iraq war, I wrote a column saying that Iraq needed a Pinochet type to bring order to Iraq and help develop democratic and liberal institutions. To this day, I get vicious hate mail from liberal and leftist readers for my "pro-dictator" stance. Meanwhile, Thomas Friedman, golden boy of the NYT op-ed page, is writing love-letters to dictatorships because they have the foresight to invest in electric batteries and waterless toilets or something. It looks like there's reason to hope I was wrong about Iraq (I certainly hope I was). But at least I favored a dictatorship of sorts — for another country! — because I thought it would lead to a liberal democracy. Here, Friedman lives in a liberal democracy but has his nose pressed up against the candy store window of a cruel, undemocratic, regime and all he can do is drool over the prospect of having the same power here. . .

Also, read Goldberg's update from a friend concerning India.

To tell the truth, I haven't really had the heart to look around to see if there are liberal voices out there congratulating Friedman for stating what is obvious to them, too. So far, I have not developed a desire to modify my views in order to compromise with anyone who agrees with Friedman about the advantages of an enlightened autocracy over a constitutional democracy (or republic). Though I can at least accept the idea that they have good intentions.

To repeat Andrew Klavan: "Free people can treat each other justly, but they can't make life fair. To get rid of the unfairness among individuals, you have to exercise power over them. The more fairness you want, the more power you need. Thus, all dreams of fairness become dreams of tyranny in the end."

Update: The King of Parody finds Mr. Friedman's first draft.

Health Care Rationing through Reimbursement Control

"Medicare has cut $1.4 billion in payments to cardiologists and oncologists in order to ration resources towards family-practice physicians."

What’s the result? Fewer providers, higher costs, and more pressure on hospitals for treatment rather than clinics, where treatments are both more efficient and available. We’re already seeing this in Medicare as providers stop taking new clients in the program. The compensation supposedly controls costs, but it only controls pricing, and the costs of providing service outstrip the compensation. Under those circumstances, providers have to either stop taking Medicare patients or fold. (emphasis mine)

How costs are controlled in Oregon: Try for a politically popular medical problem to increase your chances of treatment. (short video)

President Obama, August 19: "We are God's partners in matters of life and death,"

Andrew Klavan: "No. We're not."

If the current proposals succeed in increasing the cost and complexity of getting healthcare even further, we can move on to a Canadian-style single payer system, where costs are controlled partly by delays in medical care, particularly for chronic conditions. Video, brain tumor survivor.

Compare U.S. proposals to British system. Why not set up tax credits for people who have a hard time affording insurance, instead? Why not give tax breaks for pre-paid health care to individuals, rather than to employers, to make insurance truly portable? Why not encourage Medical Savings Accounts? How about tort reform with compensation of those injured by medical treatment - without the lottery-style winners and losers in the current tort system?

There are lots of good ideas out there which would not turn more control over health care to the federal government.

When Everybody's a Potential Criminal

I have to agree with Glenn on the issues of too many laws and the misuse of prosecutorial power. He mentions three books about these issues.

I think society works best when there are fewer laws, more equitably enforced. Maybe we could start honoring politicians and bureaucrats for replacing existing laws with simpler, clearer and better laws, rather than for adding yet more laws to (just as one example) the Code of Federal Regulations.

At some point, the prospect of legal hazards starts to have too great an effect on people's willingness to take any kind of risk. Progress and innovation are greatly slowed. We have already passed that point in some areas. I imagine that finding out what laws they are expected to follow is especially daunting for someone contemplating starting a new business.

When I worked in Regulatory Affairs in the pharmaceutical industry, one of my duties was to review industry newsletters and printouts of proposed laws in the Federal Register (we got regular printouts of changed in the Federal Register and CFR from Information Services - they paid a fee for these summaries), We also reviewed news about foreign laws pertaining to our industry and worked with our subsidiaries to make sure we remained in compliance. The analysts held weekly meetings to discuss changes in laws and regulations. We were responsible for alerting other departments when we learned of laws or potential laws which could affect them - OSHA, EPA and other laws included. Occasionally, our company commented on proposed laws during the public comment period, or even dispatched a lobbyist to speak with a lawmaker concerning a proposed new law. What kind of small business person has the time or means to do something like this?

On the other hand, some State agencies get away with ignoring even well-known laws and regulations of which they are fully cognizant - OSHA, EPA, building codes - the types of laws ignored are varied. Even when they are caught in violations, it does not generally lead to many adverse consequences for those involved. After all, you often need permission from a government in order to sue it. And employees of State agencies who push for compliance with the law may become the targets of harassment and may even be forced out of their jobs. David has seen this more than once. One reason to decrease the scope of government responsibilities. When government focuses on its core responsibilities, it is more likely to do a better job with them.

Earlier post on the expansion of U.S. federal criminal laws here.

The White House "fishy information" database

Barak Obama's recent tweet linked to a page with in interesting request:

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

In addition to being sort of creepy, there is some possibility that this type of data gathering by the administration is illegal.

I'd say there are glaring Privacy Act violations here. And the penalties, per §552a(i) include fines of up to $5,000, not only for gathering forbidden data, but for disclosing it or maintaining an undisclosed system.

But it may be that the White House data base would not be covered by the Privacy Act like other government agencies. Records collected by the White House are apparently not covered under Freedom of Information, and may fall under a requirement that they be kept permanently. Unintended (probably) Consequences:

A secret and more or less permanent dissident database--in America! That's quite an accomplishment for an administration still in its seventh month. It seems longer, somehow.

Thought: On of Roger L. Simon's commenters (linked above) suggested flooding flag@whitehouse.gov with respectful, thoughtful suggestions. If these go into a permanent database, they could be instructive for future historians.

6 days later: Administration not backing away. But where's the transparency? Where's the ACLU?

Update: The White House finally took down flag@whithouse.gov after questions like those above, and publicity like this video.

You're Probably a Federal Criminal

Lots of people are considered criminals under federal law, and they dont even know that they are criminals.