Dan Among Den

October 18, 2007

IMF Report on Globalization & Inequality

The IMF is releasing a report on the effects of globalization on income inequality in various countries around the world. While the report does show that inequality has increased, this is not about the rich getting richer. Instead, it seems to be about the skilled getting richer faster than the unskilled.

Here's some interesting analysis from Gary Becker:

The report analyzes what happened to incomes and inequality in over 50 countries. It finds that essentially all these countries had large increases in per capita incomes since the early 1980's. While the growth was positive at different income levels, including those at the very bottom, income growth was not uniform among different skills...

However, the most powerful effect on inequality from globalization is due to transfers of modern technologies. The evidence from developed economies has been that modern technologies, like the computer and Internet, favor more educated and other skilled workers; in economic parlance, that these technologies are skill biased. This effect of technological progress has been used to explain the sharply rising gap in earnings between college graduates and others during the past three decades in the United States. Not surprisingly, the IMF's study finds that a similar skill bias applies to international technology transfers, that they raised the earnings gap between more skilled and less skilled workers in developing countries.

Read the full text.

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September 11, 2007

Spin on the Petraeus report

It's been interesting watching the press spin on the Petraeus report. Everywhere I see it, the headline always seems to be of the form "Petraeus recommends troop withdrawal", and the article lead-in usually reads something like, "General Petraeus recommended troop withdrawal in his testimony to Congress on this deeply unpopular war." From there the general tone is one of submission and loss, that there is no point in continuing.

However, if you keep reading to see the actual quotes from his testimony (and actually go look for longer transcripts), it seems that what he is really saying is that the troop surge has been working, that it has largely achieved what they wanted, and that they won't need them much longer.

And yet, I haven't seen a single headline, "Petraeus Calls Surge a Success".

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April 25, 2007

Texas HPV

For those of you following the Texas HPV vaccine debate:

The Texas Senate voted to overturn Gov. Rick Perry's executive order Monday to mandate a vaccine for the Human papillomavirus for school-aged girls.

The bill will head to the Perry's desk, and he is expected to veto it.

The House also voted to overturn the order more than a month ago.

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April 23, 2007

On the media's coverage of terrorist attacks...

From Iraq The Model:

Where are the media when terrorists use chlorine poisonous gas, acids, and ball bearings to kill and hurt more and more civilians in utter disregard to all written and unwritten laws, ethics and values?

I understand it's the duty of the media to practice scrutiny over the work of governments but isn't it equally their duty to expose criminals and their evil deeds?

It's frustrating to see the media turn a blind eye to the nature of the crimes and open fire on an honest endeavor to restore peace to a bleeding nation. I'm sure the terrorists are pleased by the coverage. Why not, when their crimes are being portrayed as successful breakthroughs against the efforts of Iraq and America it's likely motivating them to keep up the killing.

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February 08, 2007

Was Snickers promoting homophobia or mocking it?

One of the ads during the Superbowl has come under fire for promoting homophobia.

This year's advertisement by Masterfoods, a unit of privately-held Mars, showed two auto mechanics locked in an accidental kiss while eating a Snickers candy bar, then ripping out chest hair to prove they are "manly."

"The makers of Snickers and its parent company at Mars should know better," the Human Rights Campaign said in a statement. "If they have any questions about why the ad isn't funny, we can help put them in touch with any number of Americans who have suffered hate crimes."

Masterfoods said that while feedback from its key customers had been positive, it would nonetheless pull the commercial.

"We know that humor is highly subjective and understand that some people may have found the ad offensive," the company said in a statement.

Oh, come on!! Hate Crimes? Even bringing that into the discussion is ridiculous and trivializes hate crimes. This ad doesn't promote homophobia. It mocks it. It takes two guys' love of a Snickers bar, turns it into an awkward violoation of personal space, and then shows how their slavery to homophobia forces them to injure themselves to get rid of the "gay cooties".

Anyway, here it is. Take a look.

Personally, and with a fair dose of cynicism, I think what's really happening here is that someone saw the chance to grind their favorite axe and jumped at it. This lets them get their particular issue out there in the press and the national mindshare, and they think that's a good thing. I, however, think it was a mistake. Instead of focusing on real issues of discrimination and hatred, we're debating whether or not a commercial was sufficiently sensitive to the gay community.

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January 08, 2007

Dancing a little jig

I'm dancing a little jig right now...

because at this moment, Carol McClellan Keeton Rhylandor How-Many-Names-Does-One-Grandma-Need Strayhorn is unemployed!

I'd like to say she's also off the public payroll as well, but she's probably got a nice retirement package coming her way after leeching at the public teat for so many years.

Not that I'm bitter about it or anything.

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November 25, 2006

Excellent political ad from Argentina

(Hat-tip to Zarq)

I just wish we could see this kind of smart political ad here in America.

(Note: This is my first attempt at embedding a YouTube video, so my apologies for any technical fubarness.)

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November 08, 2006

Mixed Feelings...

I have mixed feelings about the election results.

Congress: The Republicans got the spanking they deserved. Clearly, the mandate of 1994 is dead. This seems to be less because the Democrats have offerred something better but because the promises of 1994 have clearly been abandoned. I'm not sad because they got the spanking. I'm sad because they deserved the spanking.

Perry: I would have loved to have seen the Texas governor go down in flames, but I could read the polling data as well as the next guy and knew it wasn't going to happen. While I liked that he spent some of his political capital building a highway almost to my doorstep, I totally reject him for spending his political capital on the anti-gay-marriage amendment. At least this time, he won without my vote.

Carol Keaton-McClellan-Rhylandor-no-wonder-she-wants-to-be-called-Grandma-Strayhorn: If nothing else, I'm dancing my little jig because very soon she'll be unemployed. She's burned enough bridges in both parties that I can't see her getting elected to any office beyond the city or county level again.

Rumsfeld: It looks like he's going to fall on his sword. The voters are demanding someone's head on a pike, and it looks like it will be him. I'm saddened by this because he was a good and loyal servant, and I think his policies for transforming our armed services into something lighter and more mobile are ultimately correct. He is often slighted for not going into Iraq with sufficient force, for not having a strong northern front, but I'll point out that had his policies been implemented in the 90's, he would have had a strong, mobile force that could have been airlifted into northern Iraq. Instead, his available heavier forces were reliant on ports and roads and were bottled up by a reluctant Turkey.

Bipartisanship: Uh, right. We're not going to see any of that. The 2008 campaign season starts today. On the other hand, there's an old maxim, "That which governs best, governs least." The coming two years may not see much legislative progress, but at least we won't see much legislative damage.

2008: I'm still hoping for a Condi vs. Hillary battle, but I think it's unlikely. Condi has said many times she won't run, and I supect it's because she has some skeleton in her closet. It's a pity, because I've heard rumors that her skeleton is that she's gay. While that would certainly alienate the Southern Baptists, she's got the national security chops to hold a good chunk of the Republican base. Plus, talk about capturing the middle, which swing voter isn't going to vote for a black lesbian conservative? Meanwhile, if we can get the Hillary represented by many of her Senate votes these last 6 years, that might not be so bad. The only question is, which is the real Hillary? Is it the 1993 health-care Hillary, or is it the 2003 hawk Hillary? Heck, she even spearheaded legislation pushing for paper trails on electronic voting. I'm finding it hard to crucify her after that.

So, I now return you to the things that really matter. It seems that Brittany is getting divorced again.

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October 27, 2006

The sky is still up there

Ganking a bit on gay marriage from the Wall Street Journal op-ed page:

Social conservatives suggest that legal recognition of same-sex couples has harmed society. Sen. Bill Frist has stated that "years of de facto same-sex marriage in Scandinavia has further weakened marriage"; similar claims have been made by Sens. John Cornyn, Rick Santorum, James Inhofe and Sam Brownback.

However, there is no evidence that allowing same-sex couples to marry weakens the institution. If anything, the numbers indicate the opposite. A decade after Denmark, Norway and Sweden passed their respective partnership laws, heterosexual marriage rates had risen 10.7% in Denmark; 12.7% in Norway; and a whopping 28.8% in Sweden. In Denmark over the last few years, marriage rates are the highest they've been since the early 1970s. Divorce rates among heterosexual couples, on the other hand, have fallen. A decade after each country passed its partnership law, divorce rates had dropped 13.9% in Denmark; 6% in Norway; and 13.7% in Sweden. On average, divorce rates among heterosexuals remain lower now than in the years before same-sex partnerships were legalized.
...
Is there a correlation, then, between same-sex marriage and a strengthening of the institution of marriage? It would be difficult, and suspect, to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between these trends in heterosexual marriage and marriage rights for gays and lesbians. But the facts demonstrate that there is no proof that same-sex marriage will harm the institution of marriage...

Facts can be so annoying at times.

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Jenny Craig for President?

I'm out here in California this week, and I'm seeing plenty of campaign ads on the morning news shows. One in particular caught my ear:

"I was really fat, so I lost 70 pounds. I kept that promise to my family, and I'll keep my promise to you. I will lower your insurance rates."

So, we're supposed to elect him because he went on a diet?

Then again, this is California.

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October 10, 2006

Hmmm, we might be jumping the gun...

I'm seeing some reports here and there (sources I don't feel reliable enough to quote, i.e. Drudge and Redstate), that the page that Foley was interacting with online was 18 for most of the quoted interactions and was only a few weeks shy of 18 for the rest of them. Apparently, the age of consent in D.C. is 17, though I don't have a citation for this detail.

So... it's a reasonable question to ask, were Foley's IMs/emails actually breaking criminal law? I'm pretty sure we're in black-letter law for things like sexual harrassment and the likes of that, but those are civil laws, not criminal laws.

On the other hand, where there's smoke there's probably fire, so it's worth digging some more. He's clearly acting as though he's guilty of something, but before we sharpen the pitchforks and light the torches for a good old fashion Capitol Hill lynching party, we might want to take a collective breath and see if an actual crime was committed here.

If not, well, the cynic in me can't help but be reminded of Dan Rather's imfamous memo, released without sufficient research shortly before a national election.

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October 05, 2006

OPEC thinks gas is too cheap...

From the news...

OPEC will take one million barrels of oil a day off oversupplied world markets as soon as possible with its first output cut in more than two years, OPEC officials said on Thursday, sending oil prices back above $60.
...
The United States was dismayed by the news. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman said he would tell OPEC ministers the world still needed all the oil OPEC could pump heading into winter. He noted that at $60 a barrel oil was still near record highs.

For those of you don't know, oil was near $20/barrel just a few years ago.

So, this confuses me... wasn't it those Evil Republican Oil Excecutives who are supposed to be responsible for our high gasoline prices?

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September 29, 2006

How's that for irony?

From the political irony department...

Six-term Republican Rep. Mark Foley (news, bio, voting record) of Florida resigned from the U.S. Congress on Friday following reports he sent sexually inappropriate e-mails to underage male congressional interns.

Foley, chairman of the House caucus on missing and exploited children, said he would resign after ABC News reported he sent messages to current and former congressional pages with references to sexual organs and acts.

I guess he knew his subject matter pretty well.

My apologies if it seems I'm handling this too glibly. I suspect he's got real criminal skeletons in his closet, and if so, I hope he gets a really big cellmate.

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July 18, 2006

Israel vs. Syria/Iran

I haven't been saying much about politics lately for various reasons, but I feel the need to say this much. If you haven't paying attention to what's going on between Israel and Hizbollah lately, you should be.

Hizbollah has been lobbing rockets across the Lebanon-Israel border for the last couple of weeks, and Israel had been fighting back hard. The nature of the Israeli aerial bombardment is characteristic of the the kind of work you do prepatory to a ground invasion. Add to the mix that three brigades of reservists have been called up to relieve the front-line border troops, and I'd say the Israeli invasion is imminent.

Is Israel overreacting? I don't think so. This is not about Hizbollah and its rockets. This is a proxy war between Israel and Syria, and ultimately with Iran. Syria and Iran are the principal supporters of Hizbollah, and both of them are desparate to distract the international community from their own problems. The U.N. probe into Syria's role in key assassinations in Lebanon is coming to fruition, and Iran has just been referred to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions by all five of the veto-wielding members.

I find it a bit too coincidental that Hizbollah would launch a major offensive like this and not be getting its directions from its masters to the north and east. There's also the matter of Hamas stirring trouble in Gaza, and they are also receiving funding from Iran. Israel knows this even better than we do, and they know they are being attacked by Iran.

Add Iran's possible nuclear weapon's program to the mix, and it could turn very messy, very quickly. Given their recent rhetoric of "fiery retribution" and "wiping Israel off the map", I have doubts both about the peaceful nature of their nuclear ambitions as well as any notions that they would restrain themselves. Maybe I'm just being paranoid here, but their words have been far from reassuring.

The greater likelihood, however, is that Israel will strike first. They have been fighting a war of survival for generations now, and they know what that means. I suspect the severity of this campaign against Hizbollah is designed to communicate to Iran that they are serious about this long war. Israel already has nuclear weapons. They certainly have the ability to deliver them as far as Syria and probably as far as Iran. If Iran demonstrates their ability to build a nuclear bomb, I don't doubt for a minute that Israel will strike first.

That's why it is critical for the rest of the world powers to act firmly now, identify the real aggressors (Iran and Syria), and muzzle them with as little bloodshed as possible.

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June 15, 2006

Gore's movie gored?

I found this article (ganked from Slashdot) where a climatologist rips Al Gore's recent movie a new exhaust vent.

A little googling turned up this article as well, though not as on target to the movie itself.

Personally, I've been on the fence. I know that CO2 greehouse effects have been observed on Venus and in the laboratory. However, on the global scale, the relation between atmospheric CO2 and global temperatures don't provide much of a match. That is, the 20th century warming patterns did not match the C02 emissions in any recognizable way.

The temperature trend did, however, match sunspot data very closely. I believe you are familiar with our neighborhood fusion furnace, yes? When it burns hotter, temperatures here seem to rise, and the data seems to be a pretty good match, much closer than the CO2 data. However, this is not conclusive.

Fortunately, both theories make certain predictions. The CO2 theory predicts that temperatures will spiral out of control, melt the ice caps, and end civilization as we know it. The sunspot theory predicts that it's cyclical and will probably fluctuate back and forth over the coming century. We're all looking for hints one way or another.

• Against the sunspot theory are some deep ocean temperature measurements that apparently aren't in keeping with the predictions of the sunspot model. Alas, I don't have the details for that study, so I can't say much about that.
• In favor of the sunspot model is that we are apparently seeing some global warming on Mars. That is, our brother planet's ice caps seem to be in retreat, and presumably this is not a result of the Martian's appetite for fossil fuels.
• Against the CO2 model is the fact that temperatures seem to have stabilized since 1998, and we've continued to pump out loads of CO2 in those 8 years.

Mostly, though, I'm still leaning towards the sunspot model, and I'm ashamed to say that one of my bigger motivations for this is not science based. Rather, it's that a lot of public figures are telling me to believe the CO2 model and crushing any dissenters as crackpots, and frankly, I don't trust the motivations of those public figures.

In the meantime, I continue to sit on the fence waiting for more conclusive science that isn't coming from a political platform.

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May 17, 2006

Posner takes on CEO pay

It's a common complaint these days that American CEO's are grossly overpaid, especially since they're all evil traitors bent on destroying the earth. Ok, not everyone adds that last bit, but I hear it enough.

This week Becker and Posner take on this subject of CEO pay, and Becker's analysis was a particularly interesting read. Here a few snippets to suggest the gist of his argument:

Yet competition for top management can explain the rapid rise over time in the pay of the average American CEO. To understand how competition works in the management market, consider the strong and stable relation at any moment between the total compensation of CEOS at publicly traded companies, and the size of the companies they head. For every 10 per cent increase in firm size, measured by the market value of assets, by sales, or by related variables, compensation increases by about 3 per cent. This "30 per cent" law held during the 1930's, and has held for every succeeding decade, including right up to the present.
...
The usual explanation given by economists for the positive relation between compensation and firm size is that the largest companies attract the best management. Therefore, bigger companies have to pay their CEOS better in order to discourage them from going to head smaller companies.
...
We need two additional facts to explain the sharp rise in pay over time, and the much higher pay in the United States than other countries. The first is that the average size of large American companies has grown in real terms about six fold during the past twenty-five years, regardless of how "large" is measured, as long as the same measure is used consistently over time. The other important fact is that the largest 50, 100, or 500 American publicly traded companies are much bigger than the largest companies in other countries.

He talks some about the bad apples, i.e. those being paid well while their companies self-destruct, but his argument for the majority seems compelling.

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April 26, 2006

The Euston Manifesto

I ran across an interesting political platform today called The Euston Manifesto. It proclaims itself to be a "fresh political alignment" for democrats and progressives, and frankly, it is one the sanest pieces of political commentary I've seen coming out of the left side of the blogosphere in years. (But then, I tend to read Daily Kos and Salon, which can both be rather froth-friendly.)

It is a statement of principals for an enlightened, democratic world with no tolerance for tyrants or their apologists and makes the same assertion I have often made that the war against radical terrorism will be won when there are liberal democracies from Morocco to Indonesia. I also found this particular elaboration on the Iraq war to be very telling:

The founding supporters of this statement took different views on the military intervention in Iraq, both for and against. We recognize that it was possible reasonably to disagree about the justification for the intervention, the manner in which it was carried through, the planning (or lack of it) for the aftermath, and the prospects for the successful implementation of democratic change. We are, however, united in our view about the reactionary, semi-fascist and murderous character of the Baathist regime in Iraq, and we recognize its overthrow as a liberation of the Iraqi people. We are also united in the view that, since the day on which this occurred, the proper concern of genuine liberals and members of the Left should have been the battle to put in place in Iraq a democratic political order and to rebuild the country's infrastructure, to create after decades of the most brutal oppression a life for Iraqis which those living in democratic countries take for granted — rather than picking through the rubble of the arguments over intervention.

I found points to quibble over on Principles 4 (Equality) and 15 (Open Source), but on the whole I thought it to be a remarkable document and so unlike much of the rabid Left I often see. Ironically, I did not find out about it from one of the lefty sites I read but from the rather conservative Austin Bay blog.

Give it a look.

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February 24, 2006

Civil War? Not yet, or if already, then it's almost 40 years old

There's been a lot of talk in the last 24 hours that the great ethnic civil war has begun in Iraq. Don't believe it. Things are calming down, and most of these pundits have a long history of proclaiming disaster in Iraq.

But yes, the last few days in Iraq have seen a lot of ethnic strife, provoked by what appears to be an al-Qaeda bombing of some Shiite mosques. This is the latest in a pattern of terrorist bombing clearly intended to provoke riots and ethnic fighting. It does not mean that the Sunnis and Shiites are finally boiling over into war. A more likely outcome is that this will drive a further wedge between the Sunni insurgents and the foreign al-Qaeda fighters.

Besides, if you're going to call this a civil war, then the civil war began not this week, nor in 2003, but in 1968 with the Sunni-dominated Baath party coming to power and savagely repressing both the Shiite and Kurdish populations for almost two generations. Of course, the Sunnis before that had been in pretty sad shape for a while too. Oh, wait, I seem to recall something about an ongoing strife between the Sunni and Shiite branches of Islam for hmmm, what was it? Hundreds of years?

Does that mean the fighting is definitely going to slow down now and not flare up into something bigger? No one can make guarentees, but I don't see it happening. The only thing starting here is another news cycle of Chicken Littles.

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November 09, 2005

You think Bush lied? Try reading this...

Here's an article refuting the various "Bush lied" claims. I won't comment on its accuracy, but I will say it was an interesting read. Now, if you honestly believe that Bush maliciously and with forethought lied to get us into the Iraq war, do read it. It will make your blood boil.

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Pointer to abortion essay

Jane Gelt over at Asymmetrical Information is a pretty good political writer (and a Libertarian to boot!), and I thought this short article was a gem of explaining why we continue to need to have the abortion debate in our country and not just settle into the two extreme camps.

The hard-core pro-choice side of the debate could be summed up as saying that right up until Mom shows up at the maternity ward to say "Hey, I'm ready to have this baby", what's in her tummy is a mere bundle of cells, and what happens to it is of no more interest to anyone (except her and her doctor) than what happens to her appendix.

The hard-core pro-life side of the debate could be summed up as saying that the instant sperm meets egg, a baby is created, and that abortion is as much murder as it would be if you met the fruit of that union on the street twenty years hence and shot him.

Most of what passes for "debate" on the issue is simply heated restatement of these core theorems: "Abortion is murder" and "A fetus is not a baby". And yet, almost no one on either side actually believes this.
...

Read on.

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November 08, 2005

Prop 2 headed for passage

With 23% of precincts reporting in, it looks the anti-gay-marriage Proposition 2 is going to pass. It is currently leading by about 77% voting for it. I had actually thought this would happen, but I had hoped it would pass by a smaller margin. We'll see what the rest of the night holds, but I don't expect much change.

Now before some of you on the Democratic side of the aisle paint this as a purely Republican product of hatred, bear in mind that the state is probably at most 61% Republican as evidenced by the 2004 election. (Bush carried the state by 61% to 38%, and as a former governor, he carried the edge of being a favorite son, usually worth about 5%.)

That means that if voter turnout patterns were similar -- and Prop 2 brought people out in droves on each side of the aisle -- then I would conclude that 16 points of that 77% is coming from the Democrats. In other words, it would appear that at least 42% of Texas Democrats voted for the ban. I suspect the number is actually higher, because I know a number of younger Republicans such as myself that voted against the ban, so those more votes had to be coming from the Democrat side.

Now, that's a very fuzzy number since the two sets of voters (2004 vs. 2005) are not necessarily the same, but it is in line with what we saw in other states in 2004 where Democrats voted in favor of state bans on gay marriage in large numbers, between 19% and 65%, at a minimum. [See my 2004 analysis.] I stress that again, those are minimum percentages, assuming that every Republican voted for those bans, which I very much doubt.

As I've said before, I believe this to be an age issue. This was sponsored and supported largely by the older generations, and predominantly opposed by the younger generations. The precincts surrounding UT are apparently rejecting the measure by a 90% to 10% margin. I imagine the retirees in Sun City are doing the opposite.

Have patience, friends, and try not to alienate the Republicans of your own generation. We are not the hateful Nazis you paint us to be.

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October 28, 2005

Ouch! CNN caught in liberal bias?

I caught this over at Redstate and thought it was just too damn funny not to pass on. Gallup did a poll about the recent Miers nomination withdrawal, and they asked folks about what kind of philosophy the next nominee should have. The results are as follows:

Very Conservative: 14%
Somewhat Conservative: 23%
Moderate: 34%
Somewhat Liberal: 16%
Very Liberal: 8%
No opinion: 4%

How should we interpret those numbers? Well, according to CNN, this is a big nod of support for the left.

On the question of the philosophy of Bush's next nominee, respondents came down solidly on the side of someone who has moderate or liberal views -- with 34 percent choosing "moderate" and 24 percent picking "liberal."

Only 14 percent thought the nominee should be "very conservative" and 23 percent chose "somewhat conservative."

Notice how they grouped "somewhat liberal" and "very liberal" together to make the liberal side seem bigger than the conservative side? But given the numbers, wouldn't it have been more accurate to say instead:

On the question of the philosophy of Bush's next nominee, respondents came down solidly on the side of someone who has conservative or moderate views -- with 37 percent choosing "conservative" and 34 percent picking "moderate."

Only 8 percent thought the nominee should be "very liberal" and 16 percent chose "somewhat liberal."

IMO, this is a clear sign of bias of the author/editor. Of course, this is popping up all over the conservative (both "very" and "somewhat") side of the blogosphere, so it might not take long for CNN to "correct" the article.

Of course, when I rule the world and have all those soft-headed bleeding hearts executed... er, I mean, if I had written the article, it might have read:

On the question of the philosophy of Bush's next nominee, respondents seemed evenly spread but with a slight lean towards the conserviate side -- with 37 percent choosing "conservative", 34 percent choosing "moderate", and 24 percent choosing "liberal".

But I've long since given up hope of seeing good, unbiased reporting coming out of the major media outlets.

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October 27, 2005

Watching the Plame Game...

I haven't said much about the investigation of Valerie Plame's outing yet, because frankly I'm just waiting for someone to actually know something. However, I will say this:

It has been very enjoyable these last couple of weeks watching dozens (if not hundreds) of Clinton apologists suddenly start preaching on the seriousness of the crime of perjury. The irony is so thick and sweet I'm spreading it on my morning toast.

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Miers Withdraws

Harriet Miers has withdrawn from the Supreme Court nomination process. As I've said before, I thought she was a poor choice due to her lack of judge-experience. Hopefully, we will not repeat the folly that caused this experiment in the first place, i.e. the Senate suggestions that we needed a fresh perspective on the Court.

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October 25, 2005

Prop 2, from a Christian, Republican perspective

Early voting has started in Texas today, and I went and voted this morning. The main thing that drew me to the polls was Proposition 2, a proposed amendment to the Texas Constitution to ban gay marriage. I am something of a Republican (though you should see 37-dimension vectors spaces), and I’m a married white man with three children, raised by Republican parents in a Christian environment. And from that background, I had no doubt on how to vote on this issue.

I voted no.

That’s right, I voted against the state constitutional ban on gay marriage because of my background. Now, I could also quote you a number of other reasons that come from a more liberal or secular background. I could even quote you a few that make Republicans such as myself the second coming of Hitler. But those are angry voices, unwilling to look deep. Unfortunately, some of my Republican cohorts speak with the same tone, but from a different side. It is to them that I make this argument.

Thus I present some reasons for a Christian Republican to vote against Proposition 2 on the Texas constitutional ballot:

The amendment is mostly redundant. There is already a state law that forbids the state or a political subdivision from recognizing gay marriage, so in Texas it is already disallowed. As a Republican, I feel in general principal that the fewer the laws, the better. There are exceptions, of course, but all things being equal, fewer laws are better than more laws. The Texas Constitution is a huge document, riddled with amendments, and keeping one more off the pile is a worthy cause in itself.

The amendment does not really provide much more protection against an “activist” judge than the current state law. This protection against judges has been one of the main selling points of this amendment, but the truth is that it does not help much. The only protection it could reasonably provide is that it would keep a state judge from ruling the current marriage law in violation of the current Texas Constitution. Further, the Texas Constitution is so complex, that a determined judge could probably find a conflict between the new amendment and some previously existing clause, allowing him to craft a ruling between the two conflicts. But that’s not likely to happen since the current law is unlikely to be overturned by a state court because the appeals court and state supreme court judges are elected, and as of late, that means they have become stocked with conservatives who are very unlikely to go off the deep end in such stormy political waters. Finally, the amendment does nothing about the more likely legal challenge that a gay marriage ban violates the Federal Constitution. You could claim that marriage is a state matter, not subject to federal regulation, but that logic would allow Texas to keep Hispanics or women out of state office, since those are purely matters of the state of Texas.

The language of the amendment is poorly drafted and overly vague on the matter of civil unions or on a status similar to marriage. Many legal analysts have commented that this will likely forbid “common law” marriages, i.e. a man and a woman living together in a state of marriage, perhaps even church sanctioned, without actually have a marriage license. This may not seem like such a big deal to those of us who did the five minutes of paperwork at the county office years ago, but common law marriage was the norm until the mid-1800’s. To forbid it would mean that no marriage would exist except those sanctioned by the state. My Republican upbringing tells me that this is dangerous, taking something that you could do yesterday on your own but would require state permission tomorrow. Again, having fewer laws is better than having more laws.

In fact, the language on the civil unions is so poorly drafted, that some suggest it could nullify a number of legal agreements unrelated to the specific status of marriage, such as powers of attorney, living wills, even estate trusts. I point out that last item in particular because estate trusts are one of the few remaining instruments for limiting the scope of the estate tax, a.k.a. the “death tax”. If that tax continues, and it is set to do so presently, then this could make life difficult for any of you trying to pass on wealth to the next generation.

Even if you could accept the argument that this amendment will further the goal of banning gay marriage, I cannot accept the argument that banning gay marriage helps promote and stabilize traditional heterosexual marriage. As I have written before, the real threats to marriage are longevity, easy divorce, women’s rights, and the acceptance of single parents. These are things we fought hard for because they give us more options, but ultimately their exercise has cost marriage dearly. If you really are trying to save the state of marital bliss that existed in 1950’s television, that battle was lost a generation ago. This won’t bring it back.

Now, marriage is a wonderful thing. I’ve been married for over fourteen years, and it has been a wonderful source of stability and well-being in my life. It has provided a loving environment in which to raise my children. From the point of view social engineering, of maintaining the great social contract, my marriage has been a very positive step. But if marriage is such a good thing, why is it only for us, the heterosexuals, and not for them? Perhaps you feel that two men or two women would be incapable of having a stable relationship or of providing good role models for their children. It’s OK for you to feel that, but are you sure? Do you actually have any evidence or experience, or is it simple prejudice? As a practical matter, it is not the unknowns that get us into trouble, but the things we are sure of that turn out to be false.

But then you may also feel that their homosexuality, their lifestyle, is not a lifestyle at all. It is sin, you can say, and you know so because it is clearly identified in the Bible. Well, let me just say that while much of the Biblical ban on homosexuality can be read in clear text, it is also some selective reading. It is a verse from here, a verse from there, most of it either the Old Testament or from the wisdom of Paul. Now, while I cannot tell you to freely discard all the teachings of the Old Testament or of Paul, I do think that Christians should follow the words of Christ first and foremost. If I may be permitted a bit of selective quoting myself I will remind you that Christ gave us only one commandment, and that was to love our neighbors as ourselves. He did say many other things, but he made it clear that that was the big guide on how to live our lives. To toss in the Star Trek terms, it is Christ’s Prime Directive. And so, I must ask, if this amendment does nothing to further ban gay marriage and offers no real support for traditional marriage, then what is our motivation for passing it? Is it to express love for our fellow man? I think not. Rather, I think it is meant to spite our neighbors and say, “You are different, and thus you are not my neighbor, so I have no love for you.” It is a chance to cast a stone and feel better about ourselves. I don’t think we really want to do that.

And finally, this is a generational issue far more than it is a Republican or Democrat issue. I’ve seen this in a bits and pieces of polling data. For starters, the gay marriage bans voted on last November enjoyed moderate to strong support among Democrats, with at least 20-65% of Kerry voters coming down against gay marriage in the various states that voted on this issue. My belief, though, is that younger voters are more accepting of gay marriage. While much of my evidence is anecdotal, it is showing up in a few polls. A recent UCLA poll found that 57% of college freshman were in favor of gay marriage compared to only 36% in the general voting population.

This is not the first generational issue, nor will it be the last. Slavery, Jim Crow laws, women’s rights, civil rights… these have all been struggles fought between those clinging to the old traditional ways and those seeing a new and different world. While we firmly see the error of tradition now, these were not evil men and women who resisted the change. They were standing up for a way of life that had lasted for hundreds of years and had achieved great things in the absence of these new ideas. Perhaps the charitable thing to say is that they were right for their times.

And perhaps those who oppose gay marriage so vehemently today are also right for their time, but like all who came before, they too shall grow old and pass into history. The best they can do for posterity is to not make it harder for their children to govern a just society after they’re gone. So, for now, just leave it as it is. The various laws will last a while longer, perhaps even another full generation. That’s all you have to do. After that, it’s up to your children. You did better than your parents. Maybe they’ll do better than you.

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October 17, 2005

DeLay... where's the arrest warrant?

Setting aside for just a bare moment whether or not Ronnie Earle's indictments against Tom DeLay are real criminal charges or just the next step in political vendettas, I'm wondering why DeLay hasn't been arrested yet. After all, he's been formally charged with a felony. Even in polite, white-collar crimes, an indictment is followed by an arrest warrant, and then the accused arranges a time with his lawyer and the D.A. to come in, surrender, and post bail. Does anyone know why this hasn't happened yet for DeLay? Is there some procedural hold-up? Or did I just miss the perp-walk on TV?

Now, getting back to the validity of the charges. If there's a judge who should have issued the arrest warrant but didn't, does that mean anything?

Personally, I don't have much of an opinion on the validity of the charges. Some of DeLay's actions look like they're skirting the line between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. At the same time, Earle's actions with the multiple grand juries, the last minute rush to beat the statute of limitations after a two year investigation, and the personal film crew... well, let's just say it doesn't match my expectations of proper D.A. behavior.

Time will tell.

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Progress of the Iraqi vote

Mostly I'm just passing on this commentary by an Iraqi citizen over at Iraq the Model. The day before the constitutional vote, he was thinking both back and forwards:

I am so excited but a flashback from Saddam’s referendum three years ago still hurts; he wanted a 100% as the 99.96% of the previous one shocked the dictator. I was depressed that way and I decided not to go to the voting office and so did the rest of the family but my father was afraid that not going could be dangerous. He said that maybe one member of the family could go alone and cast votes for the rest of us. We looked at each other thinking who’s going to volunteer to do this ugly job to protect the family. At that moment my father said “it was my generation that caused the misery we’re living in so I’m the one who should do this”. I couldn’t stop him and I couldn’t utter a word but I felt sad for him; his sacrifice was big and I had teary eyes when I watched him taking our papers and heading out.

It is different this time father, no more 100% and a ‘no’ would make me happy just like a ’yes’ would do and no one ever will force us to do something against our will anymore. Tomorrow will be another day for Iraqi bravery. May God protect you my people…you have suffered so much and you will still be suffering for some time but I am sure the future will be bright. God bless you my people and all the freedom lovers who keep sacrificing to make this world a better place.

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October 13, 2005

Thumbs down on Miers

I'm afraid I'm going to have to give Miers the thumbs-down on her nomination to the Supreme Court. It's not that she's too conservative or that she's not conservative enough, because frankly, no one's really sure where she is politically or even on her judicial philosophy, except presumably President Bush. It's possible that her judicial philosophy matches mine 100%, but even if I knew that to be true, I'd still have to say "no thanks" to her nomination.

It really comes down to the fact that she's never been a judge before. Nominating a non-judge first came up in June when high-ranking Senators (both Republican and Democrat) suggested the idea to President Bush, in hopes of bringing "more diverse perspectives" to the Supreme Court. Diversity is all well and good, but in my opinion, experience trumps diversity. Lack of experience is not a desired perspective, diverse or not. I was pleased that he ignored that advice when nominating Roberts, but it seems like he gave in the second time around.

Now, Harriet Miers has a long and distinguished career in law and has even argued cases in constitutional law, but I believe there is a distinct difference between arguing for a position and being the one to decide which position is more in keeping with the law. I'm sure she's adjudicated a few mock trials, but that’s no substitute for being the man (or woman) behind the bench when real lives or livelihoods are on the line.

If I may be permitted a sports analogy, we’ll take a detour into football. It’s the Super Bowl, and you’re coaching your team against a tough opponent. It’s the fourth quarter, and you’re down by four points, deep in your own territory. A player comes to you and begs to be put in as the new running back. He’s been practicing with the rest of the team for years, and he knows the playbook backwards and forwards. He even helps with some of the play calling. But... he’s never actually played in a game. He’s done great on the practice squad, and you know he’s in top physical condition, but he’s never had to carry the ball through a defensive line that’s just as committed to winning as he is. Meanwhile, you have four veteran running backs ready to go. Do you send in the new guy? Of course not! (Note: Ernie Zampese might, but we won’t go into that here.)

I don’t mean this as a personal insult to Ms. Miers in any way. She could turn out to the greatest judge since Thurgood Marshall, but the Supreme Court is not the place to get that first impression. If she is as good as many suggest, then she should have been nominated for one of the many open slots in the various appeals courts. A few years later, fate might smile upon her with a shot at the Supreme Court. At least then she could point to a body of rulings to say, “Yes, I know how to judge.”

But now... we just don’t know if she has what it takes to play in the biggest legal league around. I know the new guy can run the 40 in 3.8 seconds, but sorry Coach, you made the wrong call.

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October 12, 2005

Why is it always a Czar?

Apparently, experts call for creating US bird flu czar. Why is it always a "czar"? I mean, it's not like they were particularly efficient or reasonable. Are they really something we want to emulate?

Or maybe it's just code for, "Lets blow a lot of resources on something poorly managed and wasteful but that looks good on paper until it is finally torn down by outside forces and internal revolt." That pretty much sums up our Drug Czar.

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October 06, 2005

Best Kelo abuse so far

I've written previously about the Kelo decision and some of its fallout, but this one is the best story of Kelo-enabled abuse of eminent domain so far.

Basically, a property owner in New Jersey wants to sell his land to a developer to build townhouses on it. The developer is nationally known and has other New Jersey projects, so it's not like he's bringing in a California company. The owner stands to pocket $13 million. But the mayor and his cronies want to give the development job to their local buddies, so they're siezing the land under the guise of eminent domain to -- get this -- build townhouses on the land.

Alas, recent Court changes are moot here since (as I recall) both Rhenquist and O'Conner voted against the Kelo decision.

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October 02, 2005

Silly Political Quiz

Not too suprising, but just FYI...

You are a Social Liberal (70% permissive) and an... Economic Conservative (80% permissive) You are best described as a: Libertarian Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

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October 01, 2005

Marriage and Government

Last year I wrote a piece on gay marriage during the whole San Francisco gay marriage binge, and I made clear that I supported gay marriage but that what SF was doing was wrong. But in net terms, that was a long time ago in a blog far, far away, so I'm quoting part of it here, just to reestablish my "gay marriage credentials".

I am of mixed feelings on the recent gay marriages in San Francisco, but it’s not the usual battle of individual rights vs. tradition. No, what’s bothering me is something that most of you may consider nit-picking, but I consider it to be very, very important to our society.

First off, let me say that I am completely in favor of legalizing gay marriage. In fact, I would like to redefine the government’s formulation of marriage so far that I will be branded a radical on this. In my perfect world (as opposed to Pat Buchanan’s perfect world), the government would define “marriage” as a general partnership with special property issues and child-rearing rights. General partnerships already exist, and their key distinction from the more common limited partnership is that all members of a general partnership are general partners, not limited partners, and as such, they are equally and separably liable. This form of marriage partnership would have to be extended to specify that all of members’ property would become partnership property – exceptions could be made, thus preserving the notion of prenuptial agreements. The government would also have to invest the partnership with the child-rearing rights and responsibilities that parents currently enjoy. Divorce law would morph into laws governing the dissolution of these partnerships, and tax law would recognize these partnerships as taxable entities, thus carrying over the “filing jointly” status that most married taxpayers currently use. Finally, the only requirement on the members of the partnership would be that they have reached their age of majority and are considered adults.

Redefining the government’s concept of marriage as such a partnership removes all kinds of hang-ups. It allows marriage between a man and a woman, a man and man, and a woman and a woman. It allows marriage between catholic and Buddhist, black and white, even American and French. Interestingly, it also allows marriage between two men and a woman, or two men and four women, and so forth. Should some future bring us in contact with other sapient species (Earth-derived or otherwise), it would even allow marriage to include something non-human, provided that the being is considered to meet the criteria for other “adult” functions such as voting, driving, etc.

It allows all of this while preserving the two main government interests in marriage: the smooth flow of property and taxes in and out of a marriage, and the care of children within that marriage. Everything else is left to a matter of letting consenting adults do what they want to do. Finding a church to bless your particular collection of partners… well, you’re on your own for that one. That is not and should not be a matter for the government.

So I think I have made it clear that I am not opposed to the concept of gay marriages. I would love for them to become the law of the land because I think we’re reaching the point in our society where the government’s definition of marriage needs a serious shakeup. [Disclaimer: No, I am not personally in the market for an extra wife, husband, or dolphin-mate to spice up my marriage, but if any of you want come change diapers for a few days, I’d welcome you with glowing praise.]

Now, having said all that, I feel that what is happening in San Francisco right now is wrong – very, very wrong. We live in a society governed by the Rule of Law. That’s the reason I know I can move through the land exercising my rights, because there are laws to punish those who might choose to curtail my rights. I can buy things through the mail with confidence because I know the law would punish the vendor for defrauding me. I don’t have to worry about my company’s CEO demanding sex from me because I know the law would allow me to sue her for harassment. I can vote in Williamson County looking like a hippy – I have long hair, a beard, and a preference for tie-dyes – knowing that the law would punish any attempt to dissuade me. I can do all of those things because the citizens and public officials of this nation have a respect for the law. Much of that respect comes from the expectation that everyone else is going to respect the law and that the rare minority which flaunts it will be punished.

There is a law in California that specifically defines marriage (for the purposes of a marriage certificate) as the union between one man and one woman. Likewise, there is a federal law (The Defense of Marriage Act, 1996) that makes the same statement – though it was mostly done to excuse other states from the “full faith and credit” constitutional requirement to acknowledge hypothetical gay marriages blessed by another state. However, the California law is very clear and specific on this matter. The mayor of San Francisco did not find a problem in the language. He simply chose to ignore it and ordered the city clerks to begin issuing marriage certificates to gay couples.

You can argue that the California law is wrong, and I would agree. However, it is the law of the land, duly passed by voter referendum. You can argue that there is a place in our society for civil disobedience, for citizens to willfully disobey laws they believe to be unjust, and I would agree. However, that’s not what has happened in San Francisco. The mayor did not take an action as a citizen to disobey a law himself. He took an action as an elected official, sworn to uphold the law and execute its policy in the governing of his city. That is not civil disobedience. That is breaking the contract between the people and those who rule over them.

So mostly, I want to make sure we transition over to "legalized" gay marriage without disrupting the Rule of Law that protects our rights in this country. When the California Supreme Court weighed in a disallowed those marriages, they did so with similar reasons and with much more eloquence:

We assumed jurisdiction in these original writ proceedings to address an important but relatively narrow legal issue — whether a local executive official who is charged with the ministerial duty of enforcing a state statute exceeds his or her authority when, without any court having determined that the statute is unconstitutional, the official deliberately declines to enforce the statute because he or she determines or is of the opinion that the statute is unconstitutional.
...
The same legal issue and the same applicable legal principles could come into play, however, in a multitude of situations. For example, we would face the same legal issue if the statute in question were among those that restrict the possession or require the registration of assault weapons, and a local official, charged with the ministerial duty of enforcing those statutes, refused to apply their provisions because of the official’s view that they violate the Second Amendment of the federal Constitution.
...
Indeed, another example might illustrate the point even more clearly: the same legal issue would arise if the statute at the center of the controversy were the recently enacted provision (operative January 1, 2005) that imposes a ministerial duty upon local officials to accord the same rights and benefits to registered domestic partners as are granted to spouses (see Fam. Code, § 297.5, added by Stats. 2003, ch. 421, § 4)), and a local official — perhaps an officeholder in a locale where domestic partnership rights are unpopular — adopted a policy of refusing to recognize or accord to registered domestic partners the equal treatment mandated by statute, based solely upon the official’s view (unsupported by any judicial determination) that the statutory provisions granting such rights to registered domestic partners are unconstitutional because they improperly amend or repeal the provisions of the voter-enacted initiative measure commonly known as Proposition 22, the California Defense of Marriage Act (Fam. Code, § 308.5) without a confirming vote of the electorate, in violation of article II, section 10, subdivision (c) of the California Constitution.
...
As these various examples demonstrate, although the present proceeding may be viewed by some as presenting primarily a question of the substantive legal rights of same-sex couples, in actuality the legal issue before us implicates the interest of all individuals in ensuring that public officials execute their official duties in a manner that respects the limits of the authority granted to them as officeholders. In short, the legal question at issue — the scope of the authority entrusted to our public officials — involves the determination of a fundamental question that lies at the heart of our political system: the role of the rule of law in a society that justly prides itself on being “a government of laws, and not of men” (or women).

As indicated above, that issue ― phrased in the narrow terms presented by this case ― is whether a local executive official, charged with the ministerial duty of enforcing a statute, has the authority to disregard the terms of the statute in the absence of a judicial determination that it is unconstitutional, based solely upon the official’s opinion that the governing statute is unconstitutional. As we shall see, it is well established, both in California and elsewhere, that subject to a few narrow exceptions that clearly are inapplicable here a local executive official does not possess such authority.

Note, a challenge to the original voter referrendum is working its way up through California courts. The last I heard was that a lower court had found it unconstitutional (yay!) but that it was still headed for the higher state courts.

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September 30, 2005

Arnie Wields the Veto Pen

Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill today to allow gay marriage in California. I applaud him for doing so, even though I am in favor of gay marriage. This goes back to the same issues that the San Francisco mayor faced last year. It's about the rule of law.

Schwarzenegger said he would leave the issue of same-sex marriage to the courts and voters, who approved a ballot measure five years ago defining marriage as between a man and woman.

"I do not believe the legislature can reverse an initiative approved by the people of California," he said in a written statement. "This bill simply adds confusion to a constitutional issue. If the ban of same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, this bill is not necessary. If the ban is constitutional, this bill is ineffective."

This was simple political opportunism by the Democratic legislature, and IMO did no favors to the cause of gay marriage. If they had been serious about it, they would have been organizing an initiative vote to repeal California's existing constitutional ban.

Meanwhile, I'm gearing up to vote no on Texas' proposed constitutional ban in November.

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September 26, 2005

Economic literacy

I ran across this interesting article on economic literacy. It's a blog-conversation between two economics professors, focusing mostly on what economic literacy means and why there is so little of it in the general population as well as some ideas for changing that.

A little out-take:

I break economic literacy into two components -- factual and conceptual. Alas, most well-educated Americans are illiterate in both areas. First, the facts. Whenever I teach a seminar on basic economics, I always survey the audience: What proportion of the American labor force earns the minimum wage or less and what is the standard of living of the average American today relative to 100 years ago?

Even among highly-educated groups such as journalists or congressional staffers, the median answer is depressingly similar -- they think 20% of the American work force earns the minimum wage or less. In fact, the actual number is something less than 3%. Usually a non-trivial portion of each group thinks that our material well-being is lower today than 100 years ago. Their median answer is that we are 50% better off than we were 100 years ago. In fact, the average American is at least five and maybe 30 times better off than we were in the good old days. There's a dramatic range because it's hard to value the opportunity to listen to your iPod while recovering from open heart surgery. But 50% is a very bad answer.

Conceptual literacy means mastering the economic way of thinking -- understanding tradeoffs, market forces, and the full effects of a proposed public policy. What is the essence of the economic way of thinking? A good starting point is Frederic Bastiat's idea that what is seen, the direct effect of a policy, is often just the beginning of its impact. Equally or more important is what is not seen. The world would be a better place if people understood that the intention of a policy (no price gouging after a hurricane, for example) does not capture the full effect on our well-being.

For the record, I had guessed 6% minimum wage and five times gain in standard of living. Also, the links from the article (a few ported over in my quote) are quite interesting reading on their own. The minimum wage link, for example, goes to the authoritative source: the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. It points out a few not-so-suprising things (about half of minimum-wage earners are under 25) and some surprising things (whites are 50% more likely to earn minimum-wage than blacks or hispanics).

Hat tip to Jane Galt at Asymmetrical Information for the link.

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September 15, 2005

New Orleans opportunity

Now, just to be clear, I'm not completely down on New Orleans, its culture, or its residents. I've visited there and had a blast. But I'm pretty sure the culture will rebound. Here's a bit of an article in today's Austin American Statesman:

NEW ORLEANS — Saint Jones just needs lights and women. Then, he says, he could make a killing.

Jones is the manager of Big Daddy's, home of the bottomless/topless table dancers, famous for the swinging legs — mannequin limbs clad in fishnet stockings that kick suggestively out the front window of the Bourbon Street strip club. The sign promises the "prettiest girls in the South" and the luxury of washing the dancer of your choice.

Hurricane Katrina ran off all of Jones' performers. Now, with a city filled with thousands of men, most of them military and civilian workers, Jones sees opportunity. Dancers could make $500 a night easy, he says.

"This is a bigger convention than any convention we've ever had," he says.

There's a client base and assurances of restored electricity within days. But Jones isn't sure how to get 30 to 40 lissome and lovely ladies into the city.
...
Saint Jones is hoping the uniqueness of New Orleans — including its penchant for sin — will not wither. On Wednesday, Jones learned his club was talked about on national TV.

He darts out onto the balcony above Big Daddy's and calls down to friend Terry Fredricks. "Hey, Terry, you know we made the 'Tonight Show?' "

Fredricks' eyes light up.

Jay Leno, Jones says, joked about washing dancers. "The water's kind of dirty," he quoted the comedian, "so they might give you a moist towelette to wash her down with."

"See," he says later, "everyone knows the swinging legs."

Hmmm, now that sounds like some good clean fun. ;)

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Louisiana/New Orleans corruption... so what?

Marvin pointed me towards an article on the poor economic planning of New Orleans and how that left many of its citizens less able to cope with Katrina.

But it also contained the following:

That the governments of New Orleans and Louisiana... are corrupt and ineffective is of course widely recognized.

I've seen this mentioned many other places, and it's always stated so blandly. "Everyone knows that Louisiana and New Orleans have corrupt governments," just like we would say, "Everyone knows that Texas has hot summers." Not only was this not a secret, but it was not really seen as that big of a deal.

Shouldn't we be taking a closer look at this? I'm only marginally interested in how this corruption affected the Katrina reaction (in short, badly). Rather, what I'm really interested in is how the local residents and we as a nation would let such openly acknowledged corruption fester for so long. I mean, this wasn't just partisan rankling that this or that President should be in jail for policy or perjury. No, this was "Hey, the governor just appointed a mobster to the state gaming commission," and "Speeding tickets are $100, though a discount of 50% is available if paid to the officer directly... wink, wink."

And we all shrugged and said, "Well, yeah, but it's the Big Easy."

Why?

In other parts of the country, we're indicting government officials and their friends all the time. And this is for relatively small stuff like campaign finance minutia and tax irregularities. Yes, those are still illegal, but they fall short of things like bribery and obsruction of justice. Hell, in some areas, this kind of political scalp-hunting is replacing football as the main spectator sport. But not Louisiana. Again, why?

I don't really have the answer, but I will say this. I would hope that when a state or local government becomes incapable of policing its own corruption, the next level up would step in and take action. In this case, that would mean the federal government. The problem is that federalism (a good thing, in general) makes is hard for the federal government to come in and enforce state laws, and that's where the bulk of criminal law lies. But maybe in all of this post-Katrina political upheaval taking us all over the landscape from Presidential vacations to the war in Iraq, there might be a little mindshare for giving federal law enforcement the leeway to clean up corrupt state and local governments.

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September 10, 2005

European Myths about Katrina

Just referring you to an interesting rant over at Asymmetric Information busting some European smugness over how they never would have suffered the Katrina after-affects that we did.

One snippet:

The area that was devastated by the hurricane is approximately the size of Great Britain. Tell me again how the EU would have gotten everything under control in a matter of hours had 90% of England, Scotland, and Wales been flattened by an Atlantic storm that also knocked out electricity to Ireland and France.

and

Of course, Europeans have no way of knowing how they'd do in such a disaster, because they have no storms like Katrina, no earthquakes like Northridge, no rivers like the Mississippi . . . but somehow that doesn't seem to stop some of them from being sure that the ability of their police to stop 40 or so football yobs from rioting translates perfectly into an ability to handle the displacement of 500,000 people when even the police have no water, food, gas for their cars or power for their radios.

It's not great political/economic analysis, but it's a good rant.

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September 09, 2005

Interesting Katrina reading

I've been doing a bit of research into some of the Katrina stories, looking for some quote of Bush saying "Well, it's just black people -- let them drown." No luck on that so far.

But I did find more information on the Louisiana governor preventing both the Red Cross and FEMA from getting into New Orleans to do their jobs. Read the transcript, though I should warn you that it's FOX news. Many in the tinfoil-hat brigade consider the network to be a PR arm of the White House, but unless they're totally making up facts here, it paints a very bad picture of the Louisiana governor's judgement.

Some key exerpts below the fold.

Garrett: ... And FEMA, at least initially, in the minds of some, did not respond enough.

Hume: The words seamless don't exactly spring to mind. But look, they are down there, The Red Cross, for example, is there.

Garrett: Standing by, ready.

Hume: Standing by, ready. Why didn't FEMA send The Red Cross into New Orleans when we had all of the people there on that bridge overpass and elsewhere. Why not?

Garrett: First of all, no jurisdiction. FEMA works with The Red Cross, The Salvation Army and other organizations but it has no control to order them to go one place or the other. Secondarily, The Red Cross was ready. I got off the phone with one of their officials. They had a vanguard of trucks with water, food, hygiene equipment, all sorts of things ready to go where? To the Superdome and convention center. Why weren't they there? The Louisiana Department of Homeland Security told them they could not go.

Hume: This is isn't the Louisiana branch of the federal Homeland Security? This is --

Garrett: The state's own agency devoted to the state's homeland security. They told them you cannot go there. Why? The Red Cross tells me that state agency in Louisiana said, look, we do not want to create a magnet for more people to come to the Superdome or convention center, we want to get them out. So at the same time local officials were screaming where is the food, where is the water? The Red Cross was standing by ready, the Louisiana Department of Homeland Security said you can't go.

The Red Cross backs this up with their FAQ:

• Access to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders.
• The state Homeland Security Department had requested--and continues to request--that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city.

Back to the transcript, when discussing why FEMA didn't step in earlier to take control of everything:

Garrett: [The governor] had a choice, as I am told. She could have taken up the offer from FEMA to federalize all of the activities in Louisiana, meaning that FEMA would be in control of everything. Not only law enforcement, but everything else. She declined to give them that authority. So essentially FEMA was trapped between two bureaucracies. One the Department Of Homeland Security where many of its decisions have to be reviewed and in some cases approved, and a recalcitrant state bureaucracy that wasn't going to give them the authority they needed to make things happen, among them, the National Guard.

So, FEMA didn't do enough. Going back to my earlier questions, was FEMA allowed to do more? Apparently not.

Let me know if you run across that quote of Bush offering to only rescue the white folks, ok?

[Note: for those of you unable to discern sarcasm, that last bit was sarcasm. Yes, things were handled poorly, and yes, most residents of New Orleans are black, but if you have not yet learned that correlation does not equal causation, then you shouldn't be out there claiming to make a logical argument. Furthermore, I'm not trying lay 100% of the blame on Lousisiana and New Orleans officials, but after sitting by for a week watching the President be slandered as a murdering racist, I thought I should speak up a bit.]

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September 08, 2005

Katrina questions

While many of my fellow bloggers have been on a week-long tear of how Bush purposefully destroyed the city of New Orleans because he purportedly hates blacks (Note: someone had better warn Condi Rice!), I've remained silent. However, I do have a few questions about the handling of this emergency:

1. Was the New Orleans evacuation plan followed? The city of New Orleans had an evacuation plan. It was even posted on their website. It was supposed to be able to get everyone out, including those without transportation. Did they just not use it, or did someone in the city screw up in its implementation?
2. When was the Louisiana National Guard called up, and what were its orders? Specifically, I'd like to know if the Louisiana governor ordered the national guard to assist in the New Orleans evacuation, and if so, when? We may not get an answer on that anytime soon. I've heard unconfirmed reports that the governor has issued a gag order to the Louisiana Guard not to answer press questions on that subject. Sooner or later, though, some of them are going to get asked under oath, and we'll find out.
3. Why did the strengthened levees fail? While we've all been endlessly badgered about how "Bush cut the levee funding!!!", it seems that many of the levees had already had the scheduled work completed. At least one of the levees that failed had already had this work done. Why did it still fail? I think I already know the answer to this, and the answer is that the improved levees were designed to hold up to a Category 3 hurricane, not a strong Category 4, bordering on Category 5.
4. Given that Category 4 and Category 5 hurricanes occur every one to two years in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, why was this 15-year levee project only designed for Category 3 hurricanes? Was this a serious effort to protect the city, or just a Congressional pork project to send money back to the home district? It would seem that this money was largely a waste, given that it failed. How much more would have it cost to improve the levees to withstand a Category 5 hurricane? Was this even seriously debated?
5. Why weren’t the local government buses used to evacuate those who could not get out on their own? I’ve read that the city and school buses could have held 15,000 per trip. I noticed that one lane of the seaward-bound side of the highways was being reserved for emergency vehicles heading out during the evacuation, i.e. they were driving on the wrong side of the highway since hardly anyone was driving back in. Those buses could have been granted the status of those emergency vehicles and made multiple trips out to Baton Rouge, Shreveport, and Houston. In the two days warning they had, how many trips could they have made this way? How many stranded people could they have gotten out? 30,000? 60,000? Why were most of the buses left in place instead? They sat in New Orleans parking lots, many flooded, even as the mayor called on the national private buslines (Greyhound/etc.) to come help with the post-flooding evacuation.
6. As I understand it, Bush declared a federal state of emergency before the hurricane hit. This put a lot of resources at the disposal of local and state officials whose job it is to coordinate the efforts. What requests did they make? What, if any, requests went unfulfilled?
7. Where was the Red Cross in all of this? This is an organization with an excellent history of being quick to the scene of the disaster, both domestically (think of Florida hurricanes and Mississippi flooding) and internationally. Why were they so slow to get supplies into the city of New Orleans this time? Why was there so little food and water at the Superdome and the convention center? I’ve heard unconfirmed reports that the Red Cross had trucks upon trucks ready to roll in with food and water, but that the Louisiana governor’s office ordered that they not be allowed into the city since the governor didn’t want to turn those sites into attractive havens that would keep people from leaving the city. The governor’s office is silent, but this report came second hand from the Red Cross.
8. For those clamoring at the notion that the feds should have seen the poor local coordination coming and just federalized the operation at the first sign of Katrina’s strength and rolled in with troops and martial law, was it legal for the federal agencies, FEMA in particular, to have usurped local control? Could they have done more earlier without breaking the law?
9. And finally, where is Rudy Giuliani? I don’t literally mean Rudy, but where is the local figure rising up to be the The Man? (Withhold the sexism complaints. You know exactly what I mean by this.) Yes, New Orleans got hit far worse than New York, but all I’m hearing is “Bush didn’t help us enough.” Within days, the feds had unleashed a huge some of money, money that is apparently being spent at the heady clip of $1 billion per day. I don’t see a local official stepping up to the plate to be in charge and make sure things happen.

I’d like some of those answers, and we all should. But then, it’s much easier to cast the blame on someone you already hate.

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August 31, 2005

Katrina fallout

We're now seeing the Katrina fallout, not just the tremendous loss in lives and property, but the "Hey, I'm going to use this disaster to promote the righteousness of my own views!" fallout.

For the record, Katrina is not the worst hurricane ever to hit the US, nor are the last two years the worst hurricane years on record. So go put your global warming rhetoric back in your pocket.

This is also not God's revenge for Mardi Gras sinfulness.

And it's not Allah's revenge for U.S. policies in the mid-east either.

And it's not a secret NASA weather experiment gone awry either. (I only mention that here because it's as unfounded as the others.)

If it's a sign of anything, then maybe, just maybe, it's a sign that it's not such a good idea to build a city on semi-tropical coast below sea level! I don't know for sure, but I was just thinking...

So for now, get out your checkbooks and do what you can to help these folks out. And start buying building-supply stocks.

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August 10, 2005

NARAL Falsely Accuses Supreme Court Nominee Roberts

Pro-choice activists have started the smear campaign against Supreme Court Nominee Roberts. Their ad states:

Seven years ago, a bomb destroyed a women's health clinic in Birmingham, Alabama.

(On screen: Footage of bombed clinic)

(Tex on screen: New Woman/All Women Health Clinic; January 28, 1998)

Emily Lyons: When a bomb ripped through my clinic, I almost lost my life.

Announcer: Supreme Court nominee John Roberts filed court briefs supporting violent fringe groups and a convicted clinic bomber.

The only problem? The ad is false. See the factcheck.org story on it.

I also find much of this memo digging disingenous. When he was working for Reagan and G.W.H. Bush, he wasn't making rulings. He was making the argument to support the position his bosses told him to support. As a lawyer, he was making the case for his client. If we are to assume that all lawyers are ideological clones of clients they represent, then we must conclude that all defense lawyers are murderers, rapists, etc.

NARAL and others have stated that this was not a case that the government needed to get involved in, that it was some personal quest of Roberts', but that is also misleading. It was a civil suit over the interpretation of a federal law, and the federal government usually makes a "friend of the court" brief to state the government's position, i.e. "Those of us charged with enforcing that law think it means this."

(Disclaimer: I have not personally researched Roberts very much yet -- no time -- so while I have a generally favorable impression of him, it is of low intensity. I just find these NARAL tactics to be distasteful.)

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July 29, 2005

Pat Sajak on Optimism

I just made a brief spot by Pat Sajak's place, where he had a word or two to say about optimism from his latest vacation:

I’ve recently returned from an extended European vacation which included a virtually total information blackout. I carried no computer and no cell phone...
...
However, this strange juxtaposition of my information cut-off while being surrounded by growing signs of a connected world resulted in a long-absent feeling upon my return: optimism. It’s something I hadn’t felt in years. Optimism about the world and my kids and their futures. It’s something 9/11 had knocked out of me. It’s something the daily drumbeat of 24-hour news channels had kept me from feeling. How could we survive in this world where everyone hates us and everyone is out to get us?

Well, it turns out everyone doesn’t hate us. Most people are too busy taking care of their families or working or shopping to care much one way or the other. Without the prisms of CNN and “The Twin Times” of New York and Los Angeles to remind me of how terrible a country we live in and how despised we are, I had to rely on real people and actual events to show me the world, and it seemed to be a much more hospitable place.

As for the “wired” gondoliers, even they fueled the optimism. It's becoming more and more difficult to keep a society in darkness. As that tool of dictatorships and despots and thugs is taken away, it will become impossible to hold the next generation in check. As people-to-people communication seeps into places like North Korea, goofballs such as Kim Jong Il will find it harder to convince people they are world-class athletes or brilliant scholars. It will be harder for terrorists to justify their means. And, yes, it will be harder to portray America as Satan incarnate.

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July 27, 2005

Kelo Kowboys?

As many have suggested, the recent Supreme Court Kelo decision is not just a minor point of academic law. Does a stadium qualify as a "public use" because it generates tax revenue?

Property owners near the site of the new Dallas Cowboys stadium have sued the city of Arlington to stop officials from taking their land.

The lawsuit by eleven property owners alleges that the city is violating the Texas Constitution by using powers of eminent domain to condemn homes for a football stadium, according to records filed yesterday in district court in Tarrant County. The city has been acquiring property for the needed 200 acres. The process included eleven deals the City Council approved last night.

The lawsuit says eminent domain can only be used when land is taken for public use such as school and roads. City officials have said the stadium will generate jobs and sales tax revenue, constituting a public benefit.

We'll see how this plays out. There's been some noise in Texas about trying to trump the U.S. Supreme Court with state laws/amendments.

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July 22, 2005

Austin Bay

I added Austin Bay's blog to my sidebar a while ago. He's a journalist/columnist who writes mostly about national security issues. He's also a reservist who has done a tour in Iraq and also been there as an embedded journalist. He tends to write from the right, but since he's also out there on the battlefield, it's clear that this isn't just political posturing.

He just got back from a recent tour of Iraq and Afghanistan and has been blogging up a storm, so I thought I'd point him out. In particular, a recent post points to a story of courage and compassion under fire that highlights the best of our soldiers.

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July 06, 2005

The Roe Amendment

Unless you’ve been living under a rock in a foreign country currently enforcing a news embargo on penalty of a J-Lo movie marathon, you’re probably quite aware that Sandra Day O’Conner has announced her retirement from the Supreme Court. This has the left up in arms that Roe v. Wade is a mere three months from being overturned, with the nation-wide criminalization of abortion to follow immediately. (Insert additional dire predictions here, but I’m limiting myself to the abortion discussion for the moment.)

For the moment, I’m going to discount the possibility (or the probability) that the left is doing this strictly pro forma, that no matter which judge retired, there would have been a great cry over some issue that the judge had supported. The cynic in me says that someone on the left has a set of press releases and opinion articles ready to go for the retirement or death of any judge on the Supreme Court. (And no, I will not refer to it as the SCOTUS, an abbreviation far too close to “scrotum”.) But as I said, for now I will ascribe them only the purest of motives, that to preserve a woman’s right to choose. I do not mean that with sarcasm, for it is a cause I agree with.

Let me start out by saying that I don’t think that the selection of a single Supreme Court justice is going to lead to the abolishment of abortion in this country. For that matter, I don’t think two or three will do it either. For that matter, I don’t think that even overturning Roe v. Wade will do it. Why? Because at the bottom line, Americans have gotten used to abortion as an option, and they’re not about to give it up.

Even the Republican majority in Congress knows this. While they play lip service to pro-life lobby, I am confident that they understand it would be suicide for the party to outlaw abortion. Now, here I’m making two assumptions that I cannot back with hard fact. First, it is well known that a significant majority (something like 60-75%) of Americans are in favor of having the abortion option, at least in the general sense – I’ll discuss certain exceptions below. I say that this is an unprovable assumption because it’s one of those things I’ve heard so many times that it’s just become something that “is well known.” It turns out that many things that are “well known” are actually quite false. This could be one, but I have no reason to believe it. As each year goes by, the citizenry becomes more pro-choice by the simple fact of inertia, i.e. don’t make big changes. Second, politicians… well, especially elected, majority politicians are generally a shrewd bunch politically. They can read the tea leaves better than any commenter such as myself, and unless they’re really ready to convince that large majority to change its mind, then they’re not going to push the issue.

Of course, there has been some pressure on abortion from Republican corners, but these have been at the fringe of the issue. Three cases come to mind: parental notification for girls under 18, partial-birth abortion [1], and pre-abortion counseling. Now, I have heard arguments on both sides of these, and I’m not going to rehash them here. I just want to point out that these regulations or suggestions are a far cry from outlawing all abortions. The left, however, sees these in one of two ways. Some vocal Democrats see any infringement of the right of abortion as an unacceptable attack on women’s rights, and that the woman’s right to choose is the only moral issue. Other Democrats or left-leaning moderates fear these not for what they actually are, but for the step they take down a perceived slippery slope toward the abolishment of abortion. This second group may see the validity of these Republican proposals, but they dare not embrace them for fear of more. [2]

I have stated that I don’t think that abortion is in any real danger, so let me make my meaning more explicit. In the course of development for a fetus, it goes through various stages on the path towards being “viable”. To be “viable” it must be able to have a reasonable chance of surviving outside the womb. This is mostly tied to lung development, and the threshold is around 26 to 30 weeks out of a 40 week term. In other words, it’s at about the end of the second trimester and heading into the third. I suspect that abortions before the line of viability are in no real danger of ever being outlawed barring some apocalyptic change to the body politic. [3]

Since I believe that Roe v. Wade primarily legalized first trimester abortions (though I confess my knowledge here is spotty), this is a broader acceptance. This belief that these pre-viable abortions will remain legal is not based on a fine reading of the Constitution or mind-meld with Congress. It’s just a feeling that the common man (and woman) on the street would accept it as a reasonable place to draw the line. This is not to say that all abortions after that should be forbidden, but I think support for them will drop off as the weeks ratchet up. If it were left to the states, I suspect Kansas would cut as close to 26 weeks as possible, requiring a doctor’s opinion on viability afterwards, while Vermont would push it as late as the feds allowed.

But this isn’t supposed to be about majority votes or the whims of the body politic, right? It’s supposed to be about a fundamental, Constitutionally guaranteed right. Well, that’s where we run into the problems. Depending on your judicial philosophy, it’s either there, or it’s not. I’m going to butcher some terms here, but this fight is between originalists and constructionists. (I’m pretty sure about the first term as valid, but not the second.) The originalists take a very limited reading of the Constitution, and try not to read too much into it, basing their legal rulings on the text of the Constitution or the law in question. The constructionists take a broader view, looking for such things as the intent of the founders or legal authors and discerning how they would view the case at hand. Neither philosophy is inherently pro-choice or pro-life, but they can come down with markedly different rulings across a variety of issues, from gay marriage to medical marijuana and eminent domain.

Now, personally, I lean more towards the originalist side of things. The role of the judiciary is to interpret the laws, not to summon the spirits of authors long-dead and discern their intent on an issue they had never imagined. Legal authors have given us their words to express their intent, and they chose those words with care. If those words now express an unpopular or repressive opinion, it is not the role of the judiciary to reinvent the law. That task falls to the legislative branch with some involvement of the executive.

Now, from an originalist point of view, the right to abortion is not in the Constitution. [4] This aspect is not under much debate. [5] The left knows that an originalist will not find the right to abortion in the Constitution because it just isn’t there in the text. That is why they are so opposed to the nomination of one, and Bush has made it clear that is the kind of judge he intends to nominate. The legal right to abortion was created by judicial fiat and can be removed by judicial fiat.

Does that mean that originalists are bad for the country and for the rights of its citizens? I think not. I think originalists are good because they increase the predictability of the interpretation of the law. With a court full of them, we would not have the stretching of the commerce clause in the recent medical marijuana case nor the sweeping Kelo ruling on eminent domain. They are not against protecting rights. They are against inventing rights, but they are also against inventing powers. Yes, I’m aware that there have been some good rulings to come out of the constructionist viewpoint, so it pays to have some of both, but I still lean towards the originalist viewpoint because it has fewer surprises.

So, where does that leave us Roe v. Wade, and where does it leave us on abortion? As I’ve stated before, the two are separate questions. As for Roe, an originalist court could very well overturn it or limit it or, with help from the constructionist end of the bench, reconstruct on a different legal foundation. Either way, in five or ten years, we may be talking about some other case as the fundamental legal ruling on abortion. But as for abortion, I don’t think it’s going away unless a pro-life construction court finds a penumbra to declare it illegal.

So, what should the left do? It could choose to fight the nomination to the last man, but that strategy has not helped them in the past. It cost Daschle his seat, and it has hurt the Democratic Senators in the polls as the filibuster fight played out this spring. Should they embrace the devil just to get a pro-choicer onto the bench? Some would argue that that is precisely what they are doing by hinting their support for Attorney General Gonzales, a pro-choice judge who just months ago was being labeled an advocate and enabler of torture by some of the same Democrats who now support him for the Supreme Court.[6]

No, in my opinion, the left should take a page from the right. If they start getting rulings they don’t like, then they should take it out the hands of the judiciary. In this case, that would mean amending the Constitution. After all, the founders recognized that their words were incapable of addressing all future issues, so they gave us a mechanism for updating those words. If my first assumption about the quiet pro-choice majority is correct, then there is support for this. Now, it’s unlikely they could enshrine partial-birth abortions into the Constitution, but they could still get something that covered the vast majority of cases. Thus, I suggest something like:

The rights of female citizens of the United States, who are of eighteen years of age or older, to abort a fetus prior to the twenty-seventh week of gestation shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State.[7]

Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

It won’t satisfy all, but I believe it will satisfy enough to pass. It won’t be easy, because the same politics that make for a Republican or divided Senate will make for a difficult passage in the various “red” states of the American heartland. On the other hand, not all Republicans are truly anti-choice in this area. I believe that most recognize it as practical reality in the land and want to move beyond it. Meanwhile, if there really is a pro-choice majority out there, then this vehicle would be an excellent vehicle for the Democrats to reach and energize those voters. Rather than being seen as the party committed to obstructing judicial confirmations, they could be seen as the party taking real steps towards securing the rights of women in this country.

Then we can return judicial confirmations to a review of qualifications rather than the abortion brawl they have become.[8] At least, that is, until gay marriage emanates from a penumbra of the Equal Protection clause. But that’s another blog entry.

I have just one final postscript to add in my support of the dual strategy of originalists and amendments. There are many legal rights that have been recognized by the courts over the years (privacy among them) and that various parties wish the courts to recognize. Relying on the courts this way is dangerous, because what they can grant they can take away. It is far better to establish these rights in the Constitution and then not let the courts get so adventuresome on either rights or powers.

- - - End Notes - - -

[1] I must confess that partial-birth abortions are one of the few things about this debate that gets my ire up. The procedure in itself seems to be a barbaric practice, and after witnessing the birth of my three children, I find it quite disturbing. But whether something disturbs me should not be a guide to rights in this country. What really gets my ire though, is that it is defended primarily as a procedure to protect the life of the mother. Well, I’ve seen the trauma of a feet-first delivery (something required in this procedure), and I’ve seen women getting over a C-section, and while the C-section recovery seems to be about 50% longer, it is rarely considered risky. I suppose what I’d really like to see is to put the doctors involved in front of an AMA review board to explain why a C-section of a viable fetus was too risky for the mother. I’m not a doctor nor a mind-reader, so I can’t pre-judge any such explanations, but I must confess that to my layman’s observations I suspect they would have a hard time making a convincing argument. At the same time, not everything that is wrong needs to be illegal, any more than making everything virtuous mandatory.

[2] The left is not alone in this kind of paranoia. Many on the right would support stem cell research, but they are worried that it will begin an ethical slide into something much different.

[3] Put the conspiracy theories down. A second Bush term does not count as an apocalyptic event.

[4] At the same time, I’m not so sure where the Constitution grants Congress the power to regulate abortion, though the commerce clause seems to fill in for just about anything these days.

[5] To be appallingly brief, the Constitutional support for abortion in Roe v. Wade was an extension of the right to privacy established in an earlier Supreme Court ruling, but even that “right to privacy” was tenuous in its Constitutional support. It was that ruling that gave us the oft-parodied phrase “penumbras and emanations”. So, I guess Roe v. Wade is an extension of an emanation from a penumbra. A true originalist would never stand for such reasoning and would stand ready to sweep the legs out from under Roe v. Wade.

[6] Apart from any feelings towards Gonzales’ performance in the Justice Department, I think it would be impractical for him to be on the Supreme Court. With various legal issues regarding POW and enemy combatant detention practices working their way through the courts, Gonzales would have to recuse himself if any of those got to the Supreme Court as they seem destined to do. Given that such a ruling will have profound impact on the foreign policy of the United States, I would not want to see the Supreme Court divided four to four.

[7] I was tempted to add a clause to the effect that the power to regulate abortions after the twenty-seventh week would be left to the States but denied to the United States. That would prevent a federal law limiting abortions to just those protected by the amendment and allow it to vary state by state as local desires dictated. However, I didn’t see that kind of language elsewhere in other amendments, so I held off.

[8] In a pragmatic, cynical matter, this would also give both parties the chance to muzzle certain loyal but troublesome elements in their ranks who have tried to make abortion the only issue in American politics.

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June 30, 2005

Quick Update on Kelo

Congress isn't taking the Kelo ruling sitting down. In response to public outcry, several members are introducing legislation to withhold federal funds from projects that use Kelo-style imminent domain tactics.

"The only silver lining to this decision is the possibility that this time the Court has finally gone too far and that the American people are ready to reassert their constitutional authority," said DeLay, R-Texas
...
Legislation in the works would ban the use of federal funds for any project getting the go-ahead using the Kelo v. City of New London decision.

"They're going to have to find their own money, instead of coming to Washington," said Rep. James Sensenbrenner, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

Sensenbrenner and the committee's top Democrat, Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, are planning a bill that would prevent Washington from claiming eminent domain for economic development and block any state or local government from getting federal funds for projects.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, introduced a similar bill on Monday. The Supreme Court has overturned other congressional attempts to supersede its decisions.

"It is clearly within the power of Congress to limit the use of federal funds," Cornyn said.

Not all agree, however.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California says she is opposed to any legislation that would withhold federal dollars "for the enforcement of any decision of the Supreme Court, no matter how opposed I am to that decision."

I'm not sure that principle applies here, since the proposed legislation is to withhold federal assistance in a local government's plan to condemn and rebuild on private property. There never was going to be any federal "enforcement" of the decision, just a federal helping hand in the funding of the construction. Pelosi has a nice sounding platitude here, but I think she's on the wrong side of the issue in this case.

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June 29, 2005

Kelo Kicks Back

I haven't said much about the recent Kelo vs. New London Supreme Court ruling on imminent domain. I'm not sufficiently familiar with the details to render a strong opinion, but in general I'm opposed to it since, as a property owner, I'm somewhat keen on property rights.

But anyway, this is just too ironic to be true, but it apparently is. An investor named Logan Clements is pressing the Towne of Weare, New Hampshire, to use its newfound powers of imminent domain to comdemn the property at 34 Cilley Hill Rd to make way for a new hotel that he wants to build. What's the catch? That property is the home of Justice David Souter, who voted in favor of these new imminent domain powers.

Of course, this is all contrived. Clements is not in the hotel or real estate business. He's CEO of a small media company, but if the city council (Board of Selectmen in this case) is like-minded and votes to condemn, we'll get to watch the interesting spectacle of Souter (or more likely, his lawyers) arguing against the precedent set in his ruling.

In truth, though, I doubt this latest ruling would actually apply. While I haven't read the ruling, I read enough commentary to see that this ruling is supposedly restricted to those areas that are in ecomonic decline and in need of revitalization. There's enough other law and case