My Alma Mater in (Typical) Action

From WorldWideStandard.com:

The Center for Naval Analyses has just released a report on “Managing Civil Strife and Avoiding Civil War in Iraq.” A senior military analyst emailed me his take after reviewing the report:

There are two interesting things about this report, in my view. First, although the panelists identified the power vacuum [see here for more on the roots of this vacuum) as the greatest factor contributing to the rise of militias on both sides, they assume, apparently without much discussion, that the US can do nothing to fill this vacuum. Second, they focus almost entirely on recommending solutions that rely on improvements in things we have the least control and leverage over. . . .

The discussion about what to do in Iraq is spinning off into never-never land as people focus ever more on irrelevant theories and propose solutions that can’t be implemented. . . .

This piece by Dexter Filkins in today’s New York Times seems to confirm much of the above.

Typical. It’s just what you’d expect from an institution which is headed by a self-described “Carter Democrat,” and the staff of which comprises too many political non-scientists, whose idea of finding the truth is to convene “balanced” panels of bloviators. Yet one more bit wasteful exercise in self-aggrandizement, at the taxpayers’ expense.

P.S. The first link in the block quotation takes you to the home page of the Center’s parent organization, The CNA Corporation. The conference report in question is here.

Life’s Lessons

It is good to be trusting, as long as you first verify the trustworthiness of those in whom you place your trust.

Patience yields many rewards, not the least of which are accomplishment and payback.

Impatience often results in making decisions based on too little information, which is to say, it usually leads to mistakes.

Rage can be useful, if it is well controlled and carefully targeted. That rules out spontaneous rage as a useful emotion.

Emotion is more powerful than reason. Emotion is more easily communicated. Emotion appeals to emotion and blackmails reason. Those who try to rely solely on reason usually overlook the power of emotion, and they fail to see it at work in themselves.

Making a commitment and living up to it is good practice for marriage.

Love changes as one grows older. It becomes less self-centered and more truly reciprocal; that is, it becomes less fragile. But it cannot survive frequent betrayals of trust.

It is good to admit mistakes, if only to oneself. Admission helps to convert mistakes into lessons.

A person can cope with life’s disappointments by dwelling on slights and harms committed by others or by ignoring them and looking for things to accomplish. For accomplishment cancels disappointment.

A mind that has not been stretched by constant learning and hard thinking becomes flabby and betrays its owner. It becomes a warehouse of unreliable memories instead of a machine that produces rational thoughts and feasible plans.

Sometimes I wish I had known in my 20s what I know in my 60s. Then it occurs to me that one of the joys of growing older is the possibility of learning about life.

Wisdom from Roger Scruton

Roger Scruton, if you haven’t heard of him, is a conservative English philosopher. I first came across Scruton through his book of essays, Untimely Tracts. Marvelous reading. Scruton is witty, erudite, and articulate — everything one would expect of graduate of Jesus College, Cambridge. He is, moreover, bitingly and devastatingly iconoclastic about the idols of the Left. Nor does he spare conservatives and libertarians.

In any event, I recently found a speech given by Scruton two years ago, “An Englishman Looks at American Conservatism in the New Century.” In the course of the speech Scruton says that

the underlying purpose of left-wing argument is not to conserve existing things but to destroy them. It is always so much easier to find arguments against the imperfect customs of human society than arguments in favour of them, and so much easier to posture as the virtuous champion of the underdog than as the prudent defender of social hierarchy and other such ‘permanent things’.

What is neo-conservatism, really? Here is Scruton’s take:

When Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Midge Decter and Gertrude Himmelfarb first staked out what came to be known as the neo-conservative position it was very obviously an attempt to repossess the European cultural inheritance, and to reaffirm for a secular community the moral values of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. It was a belated endorsement of the culture that was taken so much for granted by the Founding Fathers that it never occurred to them to make explicit that the Constitution was premised on it.

He talks about conservatism, American foreign policy, and the war in Iraq:

For me, the true conservative approach in international relations is that adopted by the paleo-conservatives – namely to do whatever is required by the national interest, but to leave others to their fate. However, I also think that leaving others to their fate is not always in the national interest. The September 11th attacks awoke America to the existence of enemies that it had neglected to uncover and therefore failed to destroy. Whether it was right or wrong to invade Iraq, I believe that the motive for the invasion was one that all conservatives – whether neo or paleo, American or European – could endorse, namely a perception that the national interest required it. That perception may have been wrong. But it was not so obviously wrong that a responsible president could merely choose to ignore it – as Mr. Clinton chose to ignore the persistent threats from al-Qa’eda during his presidency.

The difficulty for American foreign policy is that America is always held to a much higher standard than any other country. To be precise, America is required always to have some other motive than self-interest when it goes to war, and is therefore compelled – in the forum of world opinion – to justify its belligerence in terms of benefits conferred on others. We invaded Iraq, the President will find himself saying, in order to bring law, rights and democracy to a people which had suffered under tyranny. We will do what is necessary to confer these benefits, and then we will withdraw. It is somehow not acceptable to world opinion – though it would be perfectly acceptable to me, as an English conservative – for the President to say ‘we invaded Iraq in order to destroy a tyrant who presented a real threat to our security. Having destroyed him we will leave, and allow Iraqis to get on with their lives’. It is not American conservatism that has led to a foreign policy of democratic internationalism, but the tyranny of liberal opinion, which won’t allow to America what every other country claims by right, namely, the freedom to make war in the national interest. America is allowed to make war, but only in the international interest, as this is defined by liberals.

As for “world opinion”:

As the world’s most successful country, the place where almost all its critics want to live and whose generosity all its enemies are determined to enjoy, America occupies a large place in the envy and aspiration of the world’s people. Americans believe that people will therefore love them. In fact it means that people will hate them. Human nature is so framed that, unless rescued by a large dose of humility, people will hate those who possess what they covet. They will destroy what they cannot create. And the sight of freedoms enjoyed by a people who seem to have no special entitlement to them, other than being born in the right place at the right time, gets up the nose of snobs, failures and fanatics everywhere.

Toward the end, Scruton returns to the meaning of “conservatism”:

Conservatism, as I understand it, means maintenance of the social ecology. Individual freedom is a part of that ecology, since without it social organisms cannot adapt. But freedom is not the sole or the true goal of politics. Conservatism and conservation are in fact two aspects of a single long-term policy, which is that of husbanding resources. These resources include the social capital embodied in laws, customs and institutions; it also includes the material capital contained in the environment, and the economic capital contained in a free but law-governed economy. The purpose of politics, in my view, is not to rearrange society in the interests of some over-arching vision or ideal, such as equality, liberty or fraternity. It is to maintain a vigilant resistance to the entropic forces that erode our social and ecological inheritance. The goal is to pass on to future generations, and if possible to enhance, the order and equilibrium of which we are the temporary trustees.

Agree with Scruton or not, you will learn from him. You will learn not just because he sometimes supplies arguments that buttress your beliefs, but also because he challenges your beliefs and forces you to consider them more carefully.

Century Plant Blogging

Our neighborhood boasts a mature century plant, which has a life span of about 25 years. It blooms only once, and then dies. The flower spike (main stalk) of “our” century plant sprouted in April. It rose to a height of 20-25 feet. Flower stems began to appear on it in May. It was in full bloom in June. The following photos (viewed left to right, top to bottom) capture the plant’s progress and decay from May until it began dying in July:

The final photo in the series shows that the plant dies from the bottom up; the top blooms were still full then, but the lower blooms had died and were shriveling. The plant is completely dead now; all the blooms have dried up and blown away. But it still stands tall.

As a bonus for readers who have never seen a purple sage, here’s a specimen of our local variety, which is called (fittingly) Texas sage:

A Sentimental Journey

I visited Michigan in May to see my 90-year-old mother and to revisit some of the scenes of my childhood. This is the first house I can remember. My warm memories of a sunny childhood are centered around it:

The house had an old-fashioned front porch when my family lived there, not those concrete steps and that odd bit of brickwork. We lived there almost seven years. Then the landlord (Mr. Mertz, really) decided to sell it, but my parents couldn’t afford to buy it. And so they rented this bungalow for a year:
My parents were then able to buy this modest house . . .
. . . and then, after four years, this much nicer one:
I also drove to the sites of my old elementary schools, about which I wrote here. What was Polk School . . .
. . . is now a playground:
What was Madison School . . .
. . . has been replaced by a small tract of what looks like subsidized housing:
Tyler School remains intact, on the outside, but it is now a homeless shelter:
Then there is the “supermarket” where I worked part-time when I was a senior in high school:
It was then part of the National Food Stores chain, which seems to be defunct.

Finally, I tip my hat to my home town’s most famous landmark, the Blue Water Bridge, which traverses the St. Clair River between Port Huron, Michigan, and Point Edward/Sarnia, Ontario:
(Go here for a great aerial view of the entire bridge, and much more.) The original span (left) was completed in 1938; the second span was completed in 1999.

That’s about it. The prevailing gloom that’s evident in the photos reminded me so much of my post-childhood days in Michigan that I couldn’t wait to fly back to sunny Texas.

Slopes, Ratchets, and the Death Spiral of Liberty

In describing the baneful influence of state action on the general welfare, I sometimes invoke the slippery slope, which is

an argument for the likelihood of one event or trend given another. Invoking the “slippery slope” means arguing that one action will initiate a chain of events that will lead to a (generally undesirable) event later. The argument is sometimes referred to as the thin end of the wedge or the camel’s nose.

That is to say, once a polity becomes accustomed to relying on the state for a particular thing that could be done better through private action, it becomes easier for that polity to ask the state to do other things that could be done better through private action.

Another metaphor for the rising path of state power is the ratchet effect,

the commonly observed phenomenon that some processes cannot go backwards once certain things have happened, by analogy with the mechanical ratchet that holds the spring tight as a clock is wound up.

As people become accustomed to a certain level of state action, they take that level as a given. Those who question it are labeled “radical thinkers” and “out of the mainstream.” The “mainstream” — having taken it for granted that the state should “do something” — argues mainly about how much more it should do and how it should do it, with cost as an afterthought.

Perhaps the best metaphor for the phenomenon I’ve been discussing is the death spiral. Reliance on the state creates more problems than it solves. But, having become accustomed to relying on the state, we then rely on the state to deal with the problems caused by our previous decisions to rely on the state. That only makes matters worse, which causes us to rely further on the state, etc., etc. etc.

More specifically, unleashing the power of the state to deal with matters best left to private action has diminished the ability of private actors to deal with problems and to make progress, thereby fostering the false perception that state action is inherently superior. At the same time, the accretion of power by the state has created dependencies and constituencies, leading to support for state action in the service of particular interests. Coalitions of such interests resist efforts to diminish state action, while supporting efforts to increase it. Thus the death spiral.

Can we pull out of the spiral? Not unless and until resistance to state action — especially in the domestic sphere — becomes much stronger than it is. It cannot be merely intellectual; it must be conjoined to political power. Which brings me back to my advice to the Libertarian Party:

Don’t run LP candidates for office — especially not for the presidency. Throw the LP’s support to candidates who — on balance — come closest to espousing libertarian positions. Third parties — no matter how they’re packaged — just don’t have staying power, given the American electoral system. The LP’s only hope of making progress toward libertarian ideals is to “sell” its influence to the highest bidder.

Cato Institute’s Bill Niskanen has offered similar advice. Libertarians must heed it.

We will not pull liberty out of its death spiral simply by shouting “halt.” This is no time for fastidiousness. The “best” cannot be attained until we pass through “better,” “much better,” and “very good.” The time to start is now, before the death spiral becomes irreversible. If it’s not already too late.

Why "Net Neutrality" Is a Bad Idea

I am not neutral about net neutrality. I am opposed to it.

Almost everything that one can buy comes in different gradations of quality: automobiles, shoes, bread, haircuts, computers, internet service, and on and on. Those gradations of quality enable each of us to buy goods and services that meet our particular needs, given our income constraints and preferences.

Why should I object if certain producers of web content getter better service (faster delivery of their content) if they pay a fee for that better service? They’re paying a fee for a service, just as I’m paying a higher fee for my high-speed DSL service than are many other consumers who can’t afford or choose not to pay as much for their internet service as I do. My higher fee enables me to obtain web content faster than those other consumers. Should I be forced to accept a slower speed so that they won’t be relegated to “second class” status? What about those consumers who pay even more than I do and, in return, get even faster DSL or cable service? What about those consumers who buy big Lexuses when others can only afford Honda Civics? What about those consumers who buy tailored suits when others can only afford to buy their clothes at Wal-Mart?

You can see the end of it can’t you? By the “logic” of net neutrality, everyone would be forced to accept goods and services of the same quality. That quality would be poor because there would be no incentive to produce better goods and services to earn more money in order to buy better goods and services — because they couldn’t be bought. Reminds me of the USSR.

But it’s “different” for providers of web content. Or so say the proponents of net neutrality. The providers of web content aren’t consumers, they’re producers. (Aren’t we all?) If they’re able to deliver their content faster than other producers, they’ll have an “unfair” advantage over those other providers. To which I say balderdash. Here’s why:

1. A demand for faster delivery of web content will be met by a supply of greater internet capacity, as supliers of internet capacity upgrade their networks in their competitive efforts to meet the demand for faster delivery. That is, the loss of net neutrality is unlikely to have any effect on other content providers. But there’s more to it . . .

2. Faster delivery will command a premium, just as a Lexus commands a premium over a Honda Civic.

3. Content providers will demand faster delivery and pay the premium for it only to the extent that it yields a positive return (i.e., greater profit).

4. Faster delivery will yield a positive return only to the extent that consumers actually respond to the products and services offered by buying sufficiently more of them.

5. Those consumers, therefore, will pay the premium for the faster delivery of web content.

End of discussion.

Parsing Peace

Peace comes through amity, comity, deterrence, victory, or surrender. When you have intransigent enemies — enemies who are dedicated to the demise of your civilization — the only available options are deterrence, victory, or surrender. When those enemies are fanatical, the only options are victory or surrender.

Those who merely wish for peace — but who are unwilling to fight for it (or support the fight for it) — have opted for the peace of surrender.

That Sums It Up

Israel’s ambassador to the UN said,

for us, every dead Lebanese child is a mistake and a tragedy; for them, every dead Israeli child is a victory and a cause for celebration.

(Thanks to Kim Priestap of Wizbang! for the quotation.)

Living in the Past

I spent much time at my maternal grandmother’s house in the 1940s. Grandma lived in a small village about 90 miles from my home town, so my visits to her lasted for whole weekends and sometimes for a week or two. I got to know Grandma, her house, and her village quite well — so well that my memories of her and her surroundings are still vivid. When I reflect on those memories I realize that her house, and much of her village, was a throwback to the early 1900s. This was life at Grandma’s house in the 1940s:

There was no indoor plumbing (that came later). Water was drawn at a pump in the backyard. Hands and faces were washed at a basin; baths were taken in a large galvanized tub in the shed attached to the house. The “toilet” was an outhouse tucked behind the garage (which held no automobile).

Where did we heat bath water? On the large, wood-burning range that sat in Grandma’s kitchen. She arose early every morning to fire up the range, on which she cooked all meals.

Central heat? There was none. The wood-burning range and an kerosene stove supplied all the heat Grandma needed. The upstairs bedrooms relied — in vain — on the principle of rising heat.

Air conditioning? Absurd. The only relief on hot summer nights was to stay outside for as long as possible and then to sleep with a window open at each end of the house, in the hope of catching a breeze.

Grandma kept a kitchen garden, where she grew many of the vegetables that we ate with our meals: string beans, green peas, corn, radishes, and cabbages. (Nothing beats the taste of a pea fresh from the pod.) Grandma bought other foodstuffs at local markets, to which she walked three blocks.

She kept perishable items in an icebox. An icebox — for the youngsters out there — consisted of metal compartments encased in wood. The top compartment held a block of ice, which kept the contents of the other compartments cool, but which had to be replenished every few days.

The floors of Grandma’s house were covered in linoleum and the walls were covered in wallpaper — all in a style that dated back to the early 1900s. Most of the furnishings, too, dated from the early 1900s, when she wed my grandfather — who died before I was born.

There was no TV, of course, and no telephone (that, too, came later). When Grandma needed to make a long-distance call to any of the eight of her (ten) children who didn’t live in the village she walked four blocks to the office of the local phone company.

Grandma, herself, was a throwback to the late 1800s. Her vocabulary and attitudes reflected the era of her upbringing. She indulged her grandchildren with sweets and movies. But she expected good behavior and told us, in unmistakable terms, to straighten up when we misbehaved. We obeyed her — and we loved her.

Many (perhaps most) of the other residents of the village lived just as Grandma lived, simply and quietly. The predominant evening sounds were those of crickets and tree toads, not cars and clubs and TVs at high volume. We could see the stars and, on occasion, the Northern Lights. Children could roam, day and night, without fear.

World War II had ended. The Depression had not returned. Life seemed good — even to adults, who enjoyed what they had. Peace reigned, for a short while.

Sixty years on I sometimes retreat to my memories of Grandma, her house, and her village. Those memories take me back beyond my childhood in the 1940s to the even simpler and more peaceful times of a century ago.

My Reference Shelf

You may have gone to Resources, my list of links to various sources of information (and timeless tracts) that are available on the web. I am a frequent visitor.

I am also a frequent visitor to the row of books that sits on a shelf above my computer. The books are arrayed roughly by subject but also (for aesthetic reasons) in “waves” by height (peak-trough-peak-through-peak). Here, from left to right, are the titles on my reference shelf (with links to editions that are available online):

The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, Edwin Meese III (chairman of the editorial advisory board)
The Oxford Guide to United States Supreme Court Decisions, Kermit L. Hall (editor)
The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
The Great Thoughts, George Seldes (editor)
The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America (published by the U.S. Government Printing Office [GPO], 1972)
The Constitution of the United States of America (footnoted version “presented by” Emmanuel Celler, chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. House of Representatives, GPO, 1972)
Layman’s Guide to Individual Rights under the United States Constitution (prepared by the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights of the Committe on the Judiciary of the U.S. Senate, GPO, 1972)
FDR’s Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression, Jim Powell
The Law, Frederic Bastiat
The Constitution of the United States of America (“presented by” Wayne Hays, chairman of the Committee on House Administration, GPO, 1972)
The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America (pocket version published by Cato Institute)
The Summing Up, W. Somerset Maugham
The Great Quotations, George Seldes (editor)
The New American Roget’s College Thesaurus in Dictionary Form
The Elements of Style, William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White
The Federal Reserve System: Purposes and Functions (prepared and published by the Board of Governors, 1961)
The King’s English, H.W. Fowler and F.G. Fowler
A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, H.W. Fowler (revised by Sir Ernest Gowers)
Modern American Usage: A Guide, Wilson Follett
A Manual of Style, University of Chicago Press
Legal Problem Solver (a Reader’s Digest compendium)
Know Your Rights (a Reader’s Digest compendium)
The Timetables of History, Bernard Grun
The Statistical History of the United States: From Colonial Times to the Present (prepared by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1976)
Relativity Visualized, Lewis Carroll Epstein
Amo, Amas, Amat and More: How to Use Latin to Your Own Advantage and to the Astonishment of Others, Eugene Ehrlich
Dictionary of Foreign Terms, C.O. Sylvester Mawson
Webster’s New World French Dictionary (concise edition)
21st Century Dictionary of Acronyms and Abbreviations, Diana Ajian (compiler)
The Complete Plain Words, Sir Ernest Gowers
Harbrace College Handbook, John C. Hodges and Mary E. Whitten
Handbook of Mathematical Tables and Formulas, Richard Stevens Burington (compiler)
A Guide to American English, L.M. Myers
Principles of Speech, Alan H. Monroe
The Macmillan Handbook of English, John M. Kierzek and Walker Gibson
The 1,911 Best Things Anybody Ever Said, Robert Byrne
The Plain English Approach to Business Writing, Edward P. Bailey Jr.
The Art of Literary Research, Richard D. Altick
The Basic Patterns of Plot, Foster-Harris
Written Words: A Literary Introduction to English Composition, Arthur Norman and Lewis Sawin

I have many other reference works in other parts of my house. Those listed above just happen to be the ones at hand. I would be grateful for suggestions about other titles that I should keep handy.

The Constitution: Who Has the Last Word?

The American Bar Association questions whether it is up to presidents to interpret the Constitution. (See this Washington Post story about an ABA panel’s report on presidential signing statements.) Others argue that a president is co-equal with Congress and the judiciary when it comes to interpreting the Constitution. My own view is that the Constitution gives the last word to the judicial branch. Here, in relevant part, is what it says about the scope and exercise of judicial power:

ARTICLE III.
Sect. 1. The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such Inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. . . .

Sect. 2. The judicial power shall extend to all cases in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority; to all cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers, and Consuls; to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; to controversies to which the United States shall be a party; to controversies between two or more States, between a State and citizen of another State (but only where a suit is brought by a State and not by a citizen of another State), between citizens of different States, between citizens of the same State claiming lands under grants of different States, and between a State, or the citizens thereof, and foreign States, citizens or subjects (but only where a suit is brought by one of the United States and not by a citizen or subject of a foreign state).

In all cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and consuls, and those in which a State shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact (except that jury findings of fact are not subject to appellate review), with such exceptions and under such regulations as the Congress shall make. . . .

[Italicized text in the first paragraph of Section 2 reflects changes made by the Eleventh Amendment. Italicized text in the second paragraph of Section 2 reflects the Seventh Amendment and the double-jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment.]

There are specific limitations on the scope of judicial power. But those limitations do not apply to the laws of the United States or its treaties.

There are specific limitations on the exercise of judicial power. First, there is the distinction between the Supreme Court’s original and appellate jurisdiction. Second, there is Congress’s ability to limit the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. But that grant of power to Congress does not enable it to limit the scope of the judicial branch’s power. It remains as stated in Section 2 of Article III. The only question is whether it may be exercised by the Supreme Court or must be exercised by a lower court.

Where does that leave Congress, the presidency, and the courts? Well, Congress can pass unconstitutional laws for as long there are majorities willing to do so. Presidents can sign unconstitional laws for as long as there are presidents who are willing to sign such laws. And presidents can ignore courts when courts find laws unconstitional, or when courts declare that the president has violated the Constitution. (Though presidents try to be subtle about ignoring courts, for presidents traditionally pay lip service to the notion that the final word goes to the courts.) And courts can continue to vest unconstitutional powers in government for as long as there are courts willing to do so — as they have been, in significant ways, from the onset of the New Deal.

All of that is just another way of saying that the Constitution’s “check and balances” and its (notional) grant of judicial supremacy have failed to do what they were supposed to do. They have not checked the enactment of unconstitutional laws. They have not checked judicial rulings that fly in the face of the Constitution. Rather, there has been a “race to the bottom” by the three branches, each vying to outdo the other in the undoing of the Constitution.

That is why I have argued for a changes to the Constitution that would enable Congress to check the judiciary, and enable the States to check the federal government. The three branches of the federal government no longer would be able to go their own way with respect to the Constitution. The imperial judiciary would be subject to rebuke and correction by the people’s elected representatives in Congress, and then all three branches would be subject to rebuke and correction by the people, acting through the States. For the details, read this.

Today’s Wisdom

Courtesy of The New Media Journal:

“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.”

General of the Army, Douglas MacArthur

We may have failed, once again, to heed MacArthur’s advice.

Kelo Revisited

Larry Kudlow comments about Kelo, in light of two recent decisions by the supreme courts of Oklahoma and Ohio:

Kelo was a dreadful decision.

It had anti-private property rights, anti-capitalist and anti-growth stains all over it, and the political system is repudiating it (as it should) just about everywhere.

Oklahoma’s Supreme Court repudiated it, now comes Ohio’s highest court, in addition to almost twenty states which have passed laws protecting property rights.

To put it simply: Kelo was un-American.

Kelo, in case you need a reminder, was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in its October 2004 term. A 5-4 majority of the Court (led by Justice John Paul Stevens) upheld the right of the City of New London, Connecticut, to condemn private property for redevelopment. The majority’s rationale, in brief:

The city’s redevelopment plan serves a public purpose under the “takings clause” of the Fifth Amendment because the plan enables the city to generate higher tax revenues.

The Court should defer to the judgment of the States and their political subdivisions as to what constitutes a public purpose. (The majority wrote that “For more than a century, our public use jurisprudence has wisely eschewed rigid formulas and intrusive scrutiny in favor of affording legislatures broad latitude in determining what public needs justify the use of the takings power.”)

In other words, the “takings clause” does not really apply to the States.

Not only is Kelo un-American — in the best, libertarian sense of that term — it is flat wrong. Note, for instance, the logical inconsistency in the majority’s finding. If the propriety of takings really is a matter for States to decide — as the majority would have it — there was no need for the Court to enter a judgment about the compliance of New London’s condemnation with the Fifth Amendment. All the Court needed to do was to upheld the City of New London’s actions, without determining their appropriateness under the “takings clause.”

Some libertarian commentators (e.g., here and here) have gone so far as to argue that Kelo was rightly decided because it upholds the principle of federalism. I wonder how they feel about Dred Scott?

Kelo was wrongly decided, in part, because Barron v. Mayor & City Council of Baltimore (1833), was wrongly decided. In that case, Chief Justice John Marshall opined that the Fifth Amendment is not binding on the States. As I explain here, the Fifth Amendment (all of it) was meant to apply to the States as well as to the federal government. Kelo also was wrongly decided because the meaning of the “takings clause” has been corrupted. As Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his dissent from the Kelo majority,

. . . I would revisit our Public Use Clause cases and consider returning to the original meaning of the Public Use Clause: that the government may take property only if it actually uses or gives the public a legal right to use the property.

Given all that, it is wrong for the U.S. Supreme Court to defer routinely to the takings of State and local governments, as if those takings are not a matter for federal scrutiny under the Fifth Amendment. Further, it is incumbent on the U.S. Supreme Court to reject takings by State and local governments whenever those takings are not for actual public use of property.

The Kelo majority shirked its constitutional duty when it deferred to the City of New London’s blatant seizure of private property for a private use. The majority’s opinion was nothing but a flimsy pretext to favor the collective over the individual and to flout property rights.

The Greenwald Saga

Nine days ago I made a modest effort to address one of Glenn Greenwald’s many polemical effusions. But Greenwald has been up to a lot more than Left-wing propagandizing. Patterico has the full story, here. That’s all I’ll say. Go there, and enjoy.

Diagnosing the Left

Thomas Lifson, writing at The American Thinker about a post at One Cosmos, says

I think it is almost unquestionable that the Left’s belief systems have proven incongruent with the real world. Communism didn’t work and only survives as a pretext for despotism in North Korea and China. Welfare is a trap, and poor people’s lot in America has improved since access to it was term-limited. Higher taxes on “the rich” depress economic growth and throw people out of work. The list could go on.

With their gods having failed them, leftists have turned to cant, ritual, and hysterical repetition of their golden oldie playlist of slogans. And most of all, to demoinization of their opponents. It is fairly primitive, and often comic, with tinges of tragedy.

To paraphrase what I wrote here, the Left wants a society that operates according to its strictures. But those strictures are so at odds with human nature and morality that society often (though not often enough) rejects the Left’s agenda. When Leftists cannot satisfy their power-lust in the real world, they compensate by imagining a theoretical world of doom. It is as if they walk around under a thought balloon which reads “Take that!”

The Yates Verdict

This (Yates not guilty by reason of insanity) reminds me of this, this, this, and this. Enough said.

UPDATE: Well, not quite enough said. I must refer you to this commentary, by Mike Gallagher, which examines the broader implications of the willingness to find a guilty person “not guilty.”

An Ideal World

Revised in response to the astute comment by the proprietor of the late, lamented Occam’s Carbuncle.

Thomas Hobbes argued that anarchy would lead to a human condition that is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” If the Gore-Moore-Sheehan axis of stupidity were to prevail, our lives would be collective, poor, primitive, submissive, stupid, and short.

How so? Gore, Moore, Sheehan, and their ilk — that is to say, what remains of the Democrat Party and those to its left — subscribe to an Alice-in-Wonderland view of reality, in which

the state knows best (as long as they control the state). (Collective)
it is fitting and proper to thwart endeavor and punish success through regulation and taxation. (Poor)
technological regress is not too small a price to pay for environmental extremism. (Primitive)
our enemies are merely persons with a different world-view, and peace is won by wishing for it, not fighting for it. (Submissive)
such things are believed. (Stupid)

Our lives, therefore, would be short because we are poor, primitive, ~~and~~ submissive, and stupid.

Consent of the Governed

A common view among anarcho-libertarians is that the Constitution of the United States is not a binding “social contract” — and never has been — because

the Constitution was imposed on many Americans who were not parties to its ratification or who opposed its ratification, and

regardless of the circumstances of the adoption of the Constitution, one generation cannot impose a contractual obligation on later generations.

I have addressed those objections before, but I have further thoughts.

As to the first objection: Consensus on any set of complex issues is impossible. But why should that prevent a majority from imposing its rules on a commingled minority whose adherence to the rules is necessary to the attainment of their purpose? If that purpose is to establish a regime which fosters liberty — requiring, among other things, a commitment to mutual defense — it would be foolish for the majority to lessen its commitment to liberty for the sake of assuaging the minority. Opponents of the regime cannot claim to be oppressed if the regime allows them to express their opposition peacefully, which the Constitution does.

Moreover, the original Constitution became effective only when ratified by three-fourths of the signatory States (nine of the twelve States that sent delegates to the Constitutional Convention). And it bound only the ratifying States. The other three States (plus Rhode Island, which did not send delegates to the Constitutional Convention) could have refused to ratify it — as New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island nearly did — and could therefore have remained outside the Union. (Click here for a chronology of the States’ ratifications.)

As to the second objection: The Constitution allows for amendments. (Click here and scroll down to Article V.) An amendment may be proposed by two-thirds of both houses of Congress or a two-thirds of the delegations of the States meeting in convention. An amendment must be approved by three-fourths of the States. The only matter now beyond amendment is “that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.” In other words, the Constitution can be changed by essentially the same process by which it was adopted: three-fourths of the States must agree to an amendment. But, thankfully, the Constitutions cannot be changed easily, in response to whims and passions that might diminish the Constitution’s guarantees of liberty.

So, yes, one may object to the Constitution, one may refuse to concede its legitimacy, and one may object to being forced by the state to abide by it. But here’s the catch: Such objections and reservations are valid only to the extent that the Constitution actually deprives one of liberty. Inasmuch as it does not do that (except in the fevered minds of anarcho-libertarians), and inasmuch as it fosters liberty, such objections are nothing more than irresponsible tantrums masquerading as a political philosophy.

Most of us are glad of the Constitution and accept it as a bulwark of liberty. The anarcho-libertarian alternative is anarchy, which is a way-station to warlordism and dictatorship. I fail to understand why a small (crackpot) minority should be relieved of its false sense of oppression so that all of us might “enjoy” the “benefits” of anarchy.

For more about the impossibility of peaceful, libertarian anarchy, read these posts:

Defense, Anarcho-Capitalist Style
But Wouldn’t Warlords Take Over?
My View of Warlordism, Seconded
The Fatal Naïveté of Anarcho-Libertarianism
Anarcho-Libertarian ‘Stretching’
QandO Saved Me the Trouble

An essential ingredient of anarcho-libertarianism is the non-aggression principle, which I address here:

Libertarian Nay-Saying on Foreign and Defense Policy
Libertarianism and Preemptive War: Part I
Right On! For Libertarian Hawks Only
Understanding Libertarian Hawks
More about Libertarian Hawks and Doves
Sorting Out the Libertarian Hawks and Doves
Libertarianism and Preemptive War: Part II
Give Me Liberty or Give Me Non-Aggression?
More Final(?) Words about Preemption and the Constitution
“Peace for Our Time”
Idiotarian Libertarians and the Non-Aggression Principle

Contrary to anarcho-libertarians, liberty is not an essence that wafts from heaven to imbue our souls. It is a set of compromises about how we live with each other. To more deeply explore the meaning of liberty and the proper role of the state in assuring it, read these posts:

Practical Libertarianism for Americans (links to a series)
The Meaning of Liberty (a series gathered in a single post)
Actionable Harm and the Role of the State

Finally, there is Varieties of Libertarianism, which summarizes and compares the tenets of anarcho-libertariansim (or anarcho-capitalism as it is usually called) and the other main branches of libertarianism.

The Impossibility of a Perfect Game

A “perfect game” in baseball is said to be one in which no batter for one of the teams reaches base safely in the course of nine innings (or more), all of which are pitched by the same pitcher for the other team. A “perfect game,” in other words, is perfect only from the standpoint of one team — the team that does not allow an opposing batter to reach base safely. The pitcher for that team is credited with pitching a “perfect game,” even though the attainment of “perfection” depends as much on the other players on the field as it does on the pitcher.

In sum, the traditional “perfect game” is a mark of defensive success and offensive failure. That strikes me as a wrong-headed way of defining perfection in a sport where the object is to win by outscoring the other side. A perfect offensive game — from the standpoint of one team — would be one in which none of its batters is ever retired. And a doubly perfect offensive game — from the standpoint of both teams — would be one in which no batter from either side is ever retired.

But neither a perfect offensive game nor a doubly perfect offensive game is possible — given the present rules of baseball — because the teams would never complete the first inning. A perfect offensive game might go into the bottom of the first inning, but it could never go beyond that; that is, if the team that bats in the top of the first inning (the visiting team) is retired, the team that bats in the bottom of the first inning (the home team) would never be retired. A doubly perfect offensive game would never reach the bottom of the first inning because the visiting team would never be retired.

A perfect or doubly perfect offensive game is therefore impossible because, under the present rules of baseball, a game isnt’ “a game” unless it lasts at least five innings (four and one-half if the home team is leading after the top of the fifth inning). Or, to put it another way, a perfect or doubly perfect offensive game is a pardoxical concept:

Such a game requires that at least one side is never retired.

If one side is never retired, the game cannot be completed.

If the game is not completed it cannot be counted as a perfect game.

Who’s on first?

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: