When you see an action being committed that strikes you as inherently wrong and misguided, what is your obligation to act in response to it? What if you’re in a position to prevent or thwart it? Is it your obligation to act within your means to do so?
Congressional Democrats face this dilemma. With the lone exception of Senator Lieberman, they uniformly oppose the president’s adjusted strategy in Iraq and it is generally within their power to not only thwart its implementation but to even end our involvement in Iraq altogether.(1) Given this position, what are they to do? What are they compelled to do?
If their intent is to serve the nation’s interest and it is their conviction that sending more troops into Baghdad–and remaining in Iraq altogether–contradicts the national interest than they must act to prevent the surge and bring our forces home, or propose an alternative strategy. Courage and faithfulness to conviction obligates them to. After all, if you judge something to be wrong should you not act within your means to end it or at least prevent its propagation?
Well, apparently not. Democrats fulminate that not only is sending twenty-thousand more troops to Baghdad wrong, but that success in Iraq is no longer possible and that we ought to "redeploy" our forces precipitously. Logically, that means they would exercise their legislative powers to not only prevent our presence in Iraq from increasing, but to end it completely. As Rep. Dennis Kucinich has declared, "It is simply not credible to maintain that one opposes the war, yet continues to fund it. If you oppose the war, then don’t vote to fund it."
But in actuality the Democrats’ rhetoric does not extend beyond that; mere rhetoric. Instead of backing their words with action, non-binding resolutions have been introduced in both houses of Congress expressing their respective chambers’ opposition. That is not anything more than rhetoric in legal form. Either they are not willing to follow their principles in pursuit of serving the national interest or they do not have principles whatsoever beyond the pursuit of their own political interest.(2)
The latter seems to be the case. Unwilling to take any responsibility for the situation in Iraq and accept the potential political ramifications that might ensue should they translate their bombastic rhetoric into action, the Democrats in Congress freely polemicize yet conspicuously decline to follow through with constructive action of their own in an attempt to attain cheap political benefit.
After interviewing Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the architect of the Democrats’ ‘06 victories in the House, David Ignatius characterized the Democrats’ approach to Iraq as such. "The country is angry, and it will only get more so as the problems in Iraq deepen. Don't look to Emanuel's Democrats for solutions on Iraq. It's Bush's war, and as it splinters the structure of GOP power, the Democrats are waiting to pick up the pieces."
If that is true than congressional Democrats are deliberately positioning themselves to gain politically from American failure and defeat. Victory or, if you prefer, shirking complete disaster in Iraq is undeniably in America’s interest, but the Democrats’ strategy is to refuse to do anything to accomplish either because it would run counter to their political interest. Ostensibly at least, they are putting party over nation.
This nakedly partisan and political approach would not even be that offensive if its consequences were limited only to domestic electoral politics. They are not though. Democratic strategies to score politically from failure in Iraq can only harm our men and women fighting in Iraq. When American soldiers are fighting and dying in a foreign land, their political leaders back home have an obligation to either support them absolutely or bring them home, whichever option their conviction leads them to take. Matters as grave and serious as war and peace mandate that the nation’s political leaders demonstrate decisive, principled leadership; not partisan and political opportunism guised as governance.
If congressional Democrats wish to take the public stance that our men and women in Iraq must come home than they must act within their means to effect that outcome. If they are not prepared to do this than they have an obligation to do all they can to support the American soldier serving in Iraq, or at the very least, should abstain from cutting him off at the knees. He deserves nothing less.
(1) Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution enumerates that "Congress shall have Power To...provide fore the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States." It is entirely within Congress’ power to simply stop appropriating for the Iraq war, as the Congress did in Vietnam.
(2) This is not to say that I believe America should "redeploy" from Iraq now or in the coming months, only that the Democratic majority in Congress which does, on balance, believe that, or at least publicly endorses and advocates the proposition, should act within their means to effect that outcome.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
A New Approach in Iraq
However much I have supported and defended the administration’s strategy in Iraq since the fall of Saddam in April ‘03—and continue to support our original goal of allowing for a stable, peaceful democracy to take hold there—the lack of clear political progress since the ratification of a permanent constitution and the perpetual deterioration of security on the ground, especially in and around Baghdad, leads me to no other conclusion than that our effort in Iraq is in need of a new strategy. Because it is the prevalence of violence which has prevented any tangible or visible political progress, that new strategy must focus upon forcefully ending the rampant sectarian violence that has permeated Baghdad and the insurgency that has given it cause. Accordingly, I would endorse the proposal posited by retired general Jack Keane and Frederick Kagan of a true"clear and hold" military approach with the requisite increase in American troops that would make this approach feasible. An increased force level is, as I now concede, long overdue and absolutely vital if the United States still intends to fulfill our original mission, which is in both the Iraqis’ and our own national interest.
Since the collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime in April of 2003, the main emphasis of American strategy has been to train Iraqi security forces to provide for their own nation’s security as rapidly as possible, a point that once reached would then make it possible and appropriate for American forces to come home. This always has been and should continue to be the objective. But for it to be effective, and for democratic institutions and habits to be given the environment to grow and take hold, the American military must provide basic security on the ground in the interim, until Iraqis have reached the requisite level of competence.
For the want of enough manpower, we have not been able to provide it, and a security vacuum now exists in Iraq. The largely Sunni based insurgency has focused its attacks on the predominant Shiite community and, in response, Shiites have felt compelled to turn to Shiite militias to provide security from Sunni attacks. The end result has been a bloody cycle of sectarian-based retribution, kidnaping, murder, and execution between Sunni and Shiite militias.
This cycle is out of control, and though progress behind the headlines is being made, democracy will not succeed in Iraq unless the Shiite-Sunni sectarian war is brought to an end—forcefully. As Robert Kagan and William Kristol have observed, "Unless the majority of Iraqis can be protected from terrorist bombers, insurgents, and death squads, they will not be able to negotiate and sustain any political solution." Iraqis want to be free and they want to live in peace and security. If we do not provide that until the Iraqi security and military forces can, than they will turn to the sectarian militias to do it.
Everything hinges upon securing Baghdad. Quoting Frederick Kagan, "about 80 percent of violence in Iraq occurs within a 35-mile radius of Baghdad, among a population of perhaps 10 million." To secure Baghdad, an increase in the amount of American forces in and around the capitol is requisite to effectively clearing the area of insurgents and sectarian militias and then holding it so they do not return. Our previous attempt at this, "Operation Together Forward," failed because there were not enough American troops to hold the streets and neighborhoods that had been cleared, allowing the insurgents and militias to creep back in.
A larger, reinforced American military presence in Baghdad should be able to rectify this, and effectively hold the cleared streets and neighborhoods that "Operation Together Forward" failed to.
Our previous experience in Iraq confirms this. Borrowing from Kagan and Kristol once more, "When U.S. forces in adequate numbers, together with Iraqi troops, cleared Tal Afar, Mosul, Falluja, Sadr City, and Najaf in 2004 and 2005, levels of violence in those areas dropped enormously. Economic activity picked up. Political leaders, rather than militia commanders, took charge."
None of this is to say that simply sending more American men and women to Baghdad is a silver bullet. Creating a larger presence is only half as important as what you do with that presence or who is leading it. On the latter point, President Bush has already made the decision to replace the current commanders on the ground, Generals Casey and Abizaid, with General George Petraeus.
This is a good start, but alone not enough. The newly reinforced American forces must also be tasked to go on the offensive, with the rules of engagement allowing them to take down insurgents and militia members and, most importantly, their leaders without undue restraint.
Moreover, the president’s likely plan to send additional forces to Baghdad is being commonly described as a troop "surge." This connotes a temporary increase—a blip—in the number of troops commissioned to secure Baghdad. This will do no good. Tom Donnelly is correct in emphasizing that, at this point, "The war can be lost in the next six months, but it cannot be won in the next six months." If increasing the amount of American troops in and around Baghdad is to make any difference at all those forces have to be given the time they need to accomplish their mission. An artificial timeline or a premature withdrawal will have rendered their deployment pointless.
A deployment of additional forces to Baghdad, given the time and the license to clear the area of insurgents and militias and prevent their return, is the only option we have left if we are to achieve our original goal in Iraq and the Iraqi people are to create a self-sustaining government. The only other option is a precipitous retreat from Iraq and all the chaos and bloodshed that would ensue.
From all indications, the president understands this and is prepared to act accordingly. Whatever issues can be taken with his tactics and strategy in Iraq to date, there can be no question that his heart has always been in the right place and that his political and moral courage regarding our venture in Iraq are indispensable. He has been willing to gamble everything—a second term, his presidency, his legacy—on creating a free and peaceful Iraq that will respect the lives and liberties of its own citizens and its neighbors. Political leadership of this courage and valor has always been rare, especially in these times. Whatever mistakes the president has made following the fall of Saddam, he deserves credit and appreciation for his persistence and determination to achieve victory in Iraq, a victory not many political leaders in America seem interested in anymore.
I would urge my fellow Americans to support him and this new effort, if for no other reason than because failing in Iraq would produce costs more catastrophic than this nation can bear. Victory is the only option.
********
Since the collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime in April of 2003, the main emphasis of American strategy has been to train Iraqi security forces to provide for their own nation’s security as rapidly as possible, a point that once reached would then make it possible and appropriate for American forces to come home. This always has been and should continue to be the objective. But for it to be effective, and for democratic institutions and habits to be given the environment to grow and take hold, the American military must provide basic security on the ground in the interim, until Iraqis have reached the requisite level of competence.
For the want of enough manpower, we have not been able to provide it, and a security vacuum now exists in Iraq. The largely Sunni based insurgency has focused its attacks on the predominant Shiite community and, in response, Shiites have felt compelled to turn to Shiite militias to provide security from Sunni attacks. The end result has been a bloody cycle of sectarian-based retribution, kidnaping, murder, and execution between Sunni and Shiite militias.
This cycle is out of control, and though progress behind the headlines is being made, democracy will not succeed in Iraq unless the Shiite-Sunni sectarian war is brought to an end—forcefully. As Robert Kagan and William Kristol have observed, "Unless the majority of Iraqis can be protected from terrorist bombers, insurgents, and death squads, they will not be able to negotiate and sustain any political solution." Iraqis want to be free and they want to live in peace and security. If we do not provide that until the Iraqi security and military forces can, than they will turn to the sectarian militias to do it.
Everything hinges upon securing Baghdad. Quoting Frederick Kagan, "about 80 percent of violence in Iraq occurs within a 35-mile radius of Baghdad, among a population of perhaps 10 million." To secure Baghdad, an increase in the amount of American forces in and around the capitol is requisite to effectively clearing the area of insurgents and sectarian militias and then holding it so they do not return. Our previous attempt at this, "Operation Together Forward," failed because there were not enough American troops to hold the streets and neighborhoods that had been cleared, allowing the insurgents and militias to creep back in.
A larger, reinforced American military presence in Baghdad should be able to rectify this, and effectively hold the cleared streets and neighborhoods that "Operation Together Forward" failed to.
Our previous experience in Iraq confirms this. Borrowing from Kagan and Kristol once more, "When U.S. forces in adequate numbers, together with Iraqi troops, cleared Tal Afar, Mosul, Falluja, Sadr City, and Najaf in 2004 and 2005, levels of violence in those areas dropped enormously. Economic activity picked up. Political leaders, rather than militia commanders, took charge."
None of this is to say that simply sending more American men and women to Baghdad is a silver bullet. Creating a larger presence is only half as important as what you do with that presence or who is leading it. On the latter point, President Bush has already made the decision to replace the current commanders on the ground, Generals Casey and Abizaid, with General George Petraeus.
This is a good start, but alone not enough. The newly reinforced American forces must also be tasked to go on the offensive, with the rules of engagement allowing them to take down insurgents and militia members and, most importantly, their leaders without undue restraint.
Moreover, the president’s likely plan to send additional forces to Baghdad is being commonly described as a troop "surge." This connotes a temporary increase—a blip—in the number of troops commissioned to secure Baghdad. This will do no good. Tom Donnelly is correct in emphasizing that, at this point, "The war can be lost in the next six months, but it cannot be won in the next six months." If increasing the amount of American troops in and around Baghdad is to make any difference at all those forces have to be given the time they need to accomplish their mission. An artificial timeline or a premature withdrawal will have rendered their deployment pointless.
A deployment of additional forces to Baghdad, given the time and the license to clear the area of insurgents and militias and prevent their return, is the only option we have left if we are to achieve our original goal in Iraq and the Iraqi people are to create a self-sustaining government. The only other option is a precipitous retreat from Iraq and all the chaos and bloodshed that would ensue.
From all indications, the president understands this and is prepared to act accordingly. Whatever issues can be taken with his tactics and strategy in Iraq to date, there can be no question that his heart has always been in the right place and that his political and moral courage regarding our venture in Iraq are indispensable. He has been willing to gamble everything—a second term, his presidency, his legacy—on creating a free and peaceful Iraq that will respect the lives and liberties of its own citizens and its neighbors. Political leadership of this courage and valor has always been rare, especially in these times. Whatever mistakes the president has made following the fall of Saddam, he deserves credit and appreciation for his persistence and determination to achieve victory in Iraq, a victory not many political leaders in America seem interested in anymore.
I would urge my fellow Americans to support him and this new effort, if for no other reason than because failing in Iraq would produce costs more catastrophic than this nation can bear. Victory is the only option.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
The Minimum Wage
Among the items on Speaker Pelosi’s "First 100 Hours" legislative agenda is a hike in the federal minimum wage. I have no doubt that the Speaker and the new Democratic majority in the House have nothing but the best intentions behind this, but raising the minimum wage is an inherently bad idea.
At best, it will have little, if any effect or benefit upon those for whom it was intended to—low-wage workers trying to make ends meet. As George Will points out, "Most of the working poor earn more than the minimum wage, and most of the .06% (479,000 in 2005) of America’s wage workers earning the minimum wage are not poor. Only one in five workers earning the federal minimum wage live in families with household earnings below the poverty line." Beyond even that, 29 states already have minimum wages above the federal level and most workers who do earn the minimum wage are teenagers or young adults, not the major breadwinners of the household. As Rich Lowry observes, "The effect of the hike basically will be to give a small boost to the wage of teenagers working summer or after school."
At worst, a hike will hurt low-wage workers, new entrants into the workforce, and the economy as a whole. A minimum wage hike will cause businesses to raise the prices of their products and services to cover the increased costs of labor. Businesses rarely simply absorb increased costs, and if the minimum wage increases you can expect it will be the average consumer who will end up paying that increase.
Another unintended victim of a hike will be small businesses and their minimum wage earning employees, or those aspiring to be such. Most small businesses cannot simply absorb an increase in the cost of labor, even if they were benevolent enough to do so. They will be forced to either lay off those minimum wage earners in their employ whose wages now exceed what they can afford or they will simply not hire any new workers in the present or future. Those earning the minimum wage will be taking home more, but there will be fewer of them employed than there had been under the previous wage.
The intrinsic flaw in the whole idea of raising the minimum wage, and maybe in the concept of having a minimum wage altogether, is that labor is no different from any other economic commodity—its value and price is determined by the market. Raising the minimum wage is no less odious and no less harmful to the economy than government price controls. Government intervention only harms an economic market, or aggravates further a problem it was intended to remedy.
This is an inescapable lesson of our own history from the past century. Credit to Speaker Pelosi and her colleagues for their noble intentions, but a government-decreed, artificial wage hike will only harm the very people it was intended to aid, and everyone else for that matter. I agree with George Will: "Washington, which has its hands full delivering the mail and defending the shores, should let the market do well what Washington does poorly." The market will take care of itself and those within it so long as it is allowed to do so by government.
I would urge the House and the Congress against passing a federal minimum wage hike and, if one is passed, I would urge the president to veto it.
At best, it will have little, if any effect or benefit upon those for whom it was intended to—low-wage workers trying to make ends meet. As George Will points out, "Most of the working poor earn more than the minimum wage, and most of the .06% (479,000 in 2005) of America’s wage workers earning the minimum wage are not poor. Only one in five workers earning the federal minimum wage live in families with household earnings below the poverty line." Beyond even that, 29 states already have minimum wages above the federal level and most workers who do earn the minimum wage are teenagers or young adults, not the major breadwinners of the household. As Rich Lowry observes, "The effect of the hike basically will be to give a small boost to the wage of teenagers working summer or after school."
At worst, a hike will hurt low-wage workers, new entrants into the workforce, and the economy as a whole. A minimum wage hike will cause businesses to raise the prices of their products and services to cover the increased costs of labor. Businesses rarely simply absorb increased costs, and if the minimum wage increases you can expect it will be the average consumer who will end up paying that increase.
Another unintended victim of a hike will be small businesses and their minimum wage earning employees, or those aspiring to be such. Most small businesses cannot simply absorb an increase in the cost of labor, even if they were benevolent enough to do so. They will be forced to either lay off those minimum wage earners in their employ whose wages now exceed what they can afford or they will simply not hire any new workers in the present or future. Those earning the minimum wage will be taking home more, but there will be fewer of them employed than there had been under the previous wage.
The intrinsic flaw in the whole idea of raising the minimum wage, and maybe in the concept of having a minimum wage altogether, is that labor is no different from any other economic commodity—its value and price is determined by the market. Raising the minimum wage is no less odious and no less harmful to the economy than government price controls. Government intervention only harms an economic market, or aggravates further a problem it was intended to remedy.
This is an inescapable lesson of our own history from the past century. Credit to Speaker Pelosi and her colleagues for their noble intentions, but a government-decreed, artificial wage hike will only harm the very people it was intended to aid, and everyone else for that matter. I agree with George Will: "Washington, which has its hands full delivering the mail and defending the shores, should let the market do well what Washington does poorly." The market will take care of itself and those within it so long as it is allowed to do so by government.
I would urge the House and the Congress against passing a federal minimum wage hike and, if one is passed, I would urge the president to veto it.
Friday, December 29, 2006
President Ford
In the case of President Gerald R. Ford, his was a peculiar presidency unlike any other we have seen in quite some time. He is often referred to in historical review as "the accidental president." Woe to any man laid victim by such an "accident."
He was never elected president nor vice president. Instead, he was nominated and confirmed as vice president and made president by the resignation in disgrace of his predecessor little over a year later.
From the moment he lowered his right hand he was the leader of a nation wounded and bitter following month after wretched month of Watergate and years of division over the Vietnam war. He faced the task (the term "daunting" seems pathetically incommensurate in even beginning to describe that task) of leading a nation whose people had lost all confidence in his newly inherited office—and government in general—without even the benefit of having been elected and legitimized by their ballots as president or vice president in the first place.
Recognizing the apparent hopelessness of his situation, he observed in his inaugural remarks, "I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your President by your ballots, and so I ask you to confirm me as your President with your prayers."
Prayer, and lots of it, seemed appropriate and necessary for our thirty-eighth president as he entered office. Under such weight and pressure most men would crumble. But fortunately for himself and for the nation, President Ford was not most men. He was genuinely good and decent. He loved his wife, his family, and his nation. He was the friend of many and the enemy of none. Of most advantage to his presidency and its context in history, he was uniquely courageous and concerned solely with the interest and welfare of America, even if that interest conflicted with his own personal and political interests.
This character attribute was manifested in his pardon of President Nixon, undisputably the weightiest action of his brief presidency. Many in the nation anticipated and relished the prosecution and punishment of President Nixon, and reacted to the pardon in vitriolic anger. But President Ford understood that the trial of a former president would only tear at the nation further, and that for wounds to be healed and for life to continue anew the affair must end and the ordeal must be put in the past. The pardon devastated his presidency politically, probably determining his defeat in ‘76, but it was a selfless act of statesmanship that advanced the national interest. It was highly unpopular politically, but it was the right thing to do.
This statesmanship is in short supply today, and given the consequence of the challenges and issues we as a nation currently face, we are in desperate need of it. It was this statesmanship, this sterling character, that guided President Ford through his trials as president and the nation through their own.
This alone validates his presidency. Beyond the immediate legacy and ramifications of Watergate and its effect on his presidency, one, especially a conservative, could easily take issue with a number of President Ford’s decisions and policies. But none of them measure up in importance to his calming influence amidst the storms of Watergate and the opportunity he provided America to heal.
He was the right man in a time of grave need. His presidency, his decades of public service, and his life and legacy are a credit to the United States. As his countrymen mourn his death we treasure his memory fondly and honor him with every measure of gratefulness for his contributions and service, most especially those rendered as president in our time of trial.
Thank you and goodbye, Mr. President.
He was never elected president nor vice president. Instead, he was nominated and confirmed as vice president and made president by the resignation in disgrace of his predecessor little over a year later.
From the moment he lowered his right hand he was the leader of a nation wounded and bitter following month after wretched month of Watergate and years of division over the Vietnam war. He faced the task (the term "daunting" seems pathetically incommensurate in even beginning to describe that task) of leading a nation whose people had lost all confidence in his newly inherited office—and government in general—without even the benefit of having been elected and legitimized by their ballots as president or vice president in the first place.
Recognizing the apparent hopelessness of his situation, he observed in his inaugural remarks, "I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your President by your ballots, and so I ask you to confirm me as your President with your prayers."
Prayer, and lots of it, seemed appropriate and necessary for our thirty-eighth president as he entered office. Under such weight and pressure most men would crumble. But fortunately for himself and for the nation, President Ford was not most men. He was genuinely good and decent. He loved his wife, his family, and his nation. He was the friend of many and the enemy of none. Of most advantage to his presidency and its context in history, he was uniquely courageous and concerned solely with the interest and welfare of America, even if that interest conflicted with his own personal and political interests.
This character attribute was manifested in his pardon of President Nixon, undisputably the weightiest action of his brief presidency. Many in the nation anticipated and relished the prosecution and punishment of President Nixon, and reacted to the pardon in vitriolic anger. But President Ford understood that the trial of a former president would only tear at the nation further, and that for wounds to be healed and for life to continue anew the affair must end and the ordeal must be put in the past. The pardon devastated his presidency politically, probably determining his defeat in ‘76, but it was a selfless act of statesmanship that advanced the national interest. It was highly unpopular politically, but it was the right thing to do.
This statesmanship is in short supply today, and given the consequence of the challenges and issues we as a nation currently face, we are in desperate need of it. It was this statesmanship, this sterling character, that guided President Ford through his trials as president and the nation through their own.
This alone validates his presidency. Beyond the immediate legacy and ramifications of Watergate and its effect on his presidency, one, especially a conservative, could easily take issue with a number of President Ford’s decisions and policies. But none of them measure up in importance to his calming influence amidst the storms of Watergate and the opportunity he provided America to heal.
He was the right man in a time of grave need. His presidency, his decades of public service, and his life and legacy are a credit to the United States. As his countrymen mourn his death we treasure his memory fondly and honor him with every measure of gratefulness for his contributions and service, most especially those rendered as president in our time of trial.
Thank you and goodbye, Mr. President.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
The Iraq Study Group
For all the preemptive media hype behind the bi-partisan Iraq Study Group and its report and recommendations on the situation in Iraq, the Group’s actual final product has turned out to be, in all reality, a tasteless joke. Their mandate was to provide a well-deliberated way forward in Iraq. What they actually came up with was almost literally a plagiarization of the current strategy. Among their 79 befuddled recommendations, the Group proposes that American forces "should significantly increase the number of U.S. military personnel...imbedded in and supporting Iraqi Army units" so as to accelerate the training of Iraqi units and hasten the time when "U.S. forces [can] begin to move out of Iraq."
It did not take an independent review of the situation in Iraq from an independent study group to formulate this approach, it is simply a rewording of the current approach, which is and always has been to train Iraqi forces to assume the security of their country so American forces can come home. As the president has been fond of saying, "As Iraqis stand up, we stand down."
The problem is that in the three and half years that have elapsed between the deposition of Saddam Hussein and now, this strategy hasn’t worked, which was why the ISG was commissioned in the first place. We didn’t need James Baker, Lee Hamilton, and company—as venerated as statesmen as they are—to come up with the approach that they ultimately did. Donald Rumsfeld and the Defense Department had already done so and had put it into practice. For all intensive purposes, the ISG simply nodded towards Donald Rumsfeld and said, "Yeah, what he said."
Aggravating their farce of a plan further, the ISG calls upon "the United States to engage" the neighboring nations of Iran and Syria "constructively." Supposedly, we should employ incentives and disincentives—colloquially referred to as carrots and sticks—to persuade both nations to "influence events within Iraq" because it is in "their interest to avoid chaos in Iraq" just as it is ours.
That flatly is not true. Chaos and failure within Iraq is entirely within both Syria’s and Iran’s self-interest, or else they would not be actively engaged in deliberate efforts to incur both. A constructive dialogue between the United States and Syria and Iran would be completely pointless because our interests and theirs are diametrically opposed.
What is needed in Iraq is a new strategy for achieving the goals we had when we went into the country originally. The ISG was tasked to provide one. Upon that point they failed. Such is the rotten fruit of a commission whose main goal was to present a consensus report, not to present the fresh, cogent, and most of all useful path forward asked of them. The ISG got their consensus, but left us, to borrow from the headline of a recent editorial in The Weekly Standard, "a perfect failure" of a plan.
It did not take an independent review of the situation in Iraq from an independent study group to formulate this approach, it is simply a rewording of the current approach, which is and always has been to train Iraqi forces to assume the security of their country so American forces can come home. As the president has been fond of saying, "As Iraqis stand up, we stand down."
The problem is that in the three and half years that have elapsed between the deposition of Saddam Hussein and now, this strategy hasn’t worked, which was why the ISG was commissioned in the first place. We didn’t need James Baker, Lee Hamilton, and company—as venerated as statesmen as they are—to come up with the approach that they ultimately did. Donald Rumsfeld and the Defense Department had already done so and had put it into practice. For all intensive purposes, the ISG simply nodded towards Donald Rumsfeld and said, "Yeah, what he said."
Aggravating their farce of a plan further, the ISG calls upon "the United States to engage" the neighboring nations of Iran and Syria "constructively." Supposedly, we should employ incentives and disincentives—colloquially referred to as carrots and sticks—to persuade both nations to "influence events within Iraq" because it is in "their interest to avoid chaos in Iraq" just as it is ours.
That flatly is not true. Chaos and failure within Iraq is entirely within both Syria’s and Iran’s self-interest, or else they would not be actively engaged in deliberate efforts to incur both. A constructive dialogue between the United States and Syria and Iran would be completely pointless because our interests and theirs are diametrically opposed.
What is needed in Iraq is a new strategy for achieving the goals we had when we went into the country originally. The ISG was tasked to provide one. Upon that point they failed. Such is the rotten fruit of a commission whose main goal was to present a consensus report, not to present the fresh, cogent, and most of all useful path forward asked of them. The ISG got their consensus, but left us, to borrow from the headline of a recent editorial in The Weekly Standard, "a perfect failure" of a plan.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
'06 PLU GOP Platform: Social Security
In 1950, there were 16 workers to support every one beneficiary of Social Security. Today, there are only 3.3 workers supporting every Social Security beneficiary. By the time today’s young workers begin to retire there will only be 2 workers to support every recipient. Under the current system, today's 30-year-old worker will face a 26% benefit cut when he or she reaches normal retirement age.
To keep the current social security system as it stands is to ensure a grim financial future for retirees. A sure fire way around this is to allow citizens who so choose to create personal savings accounts invested in the stock market. Over the past 17 years the stock market has produced an average 12% gain, certainly better than the 26% loss the current system will provide.
Personal savings accounts will guarantee today’s young workers not only security in retirement, but prosperity. A twenty-year old male can expect to pay $418, 517 in Social Security taxes over his working life. He can expect to receive $2, 734 in monthly Social Security benefits when he retires, amounting to a pathetic -0.95% rate of return.
However, if that twenty-year old male had been allowed to place all of his Social Security taxes in a personal savings account he would have a total of $1,192,881 in accrued wealth at retirement. Monthly benefits would end up being $9,717, or $6,983 more a month than he would receive under the current Social Security system.
At the very least, the federal government must stop spending the annual Social Security surplus on programs and expenditures completely unrelated to Social Security. That surplus should either be saved for the day when the current Social Security program is no longer solvent or, as we propose, it should be returned to those who pay into the system via the Social Security tax for a smaller personal savings account, which would compliment the regular Social Security benefits they would receive upon retirement in the current system.
* Co-authored with Chris Allen, Policy Advisor, PLU GOP.
To keep the current social security system as it stands is to ensure a grim financial future for retirees. A sure fire way around this is to allow citizens who so choose to create personal savings accounts invested in the stock market. Over the past 17 years the stock market has produced an average 12% gain, certainly better than the 26% loss the current system will provide.
Personal savings accounts will guarantee today’s young workers not only security in retirement, but prosperity. A twenty-year old male can expect to pay $418, 517 in Social Security taxes over his working life. He can expect to receive $2, 734 in monthly Social Security benefits when he retires, amounting to a pathetic -0.95% rate of return.
However, if that twenty-year old male had been allowed to place all of his Social Security taxes in a personal savings account he would have a total of $1,192,881 in accrued wealth at retirement. Monthly benefits would end up being $9,717, or $6,983 more a month than he would receive under the current Social Security system.
At the very least, the federal government must stop spending the annual Social Security surplus on programs and expenditures completely unrelated to Social Security. That surplus should either be saved for the day when the current Social Security program is no longer solvent or, as we propose, it should be returned to those who pay into the system via the Social Security tax for a smaller personal savings account, which would compliment the regular Social Security benefits they would receive upon retirement in the current system.
* Co-authored with Chris Allen, Policy Advisor, PLU GOP.
'06 PLU GOP Platform: The Economy
As Republicans, the PLU GOP intrinsically believes that government governs best when it governs least. We hold this especially true regarding the economy.
For the economy to be prosperous and dynamic, the American people must be left more of their own money to spend, save, or invest as they see fit. We believe the individual American taxpayer, not the government, knows the best manner through which to handle their own money. For this reason, we support the president's tax cuts and advocate their permanent extension.
Moreover, we believe the federal tax code should be reformed altogether, with the current anti-growth IRS code being replaced by what the president called in his 2004 acceptance speech a "simpler, fairer, pro-growth code." Instead of discouraging economic growth by taxing earnings and savings and investment, we should tax consumption at one flat rate, with exemptions for those with the lowest incomes. Such a transition, estimates Harvard economist Dale Jorgenson, would permanently increase national income by 10-15 percent. It would undoubtedly be a huge wind to the sails of our economy to abolish the IRS, double taxation on savings, the death tax, and taxes on dividends and capital gains.
The role we do envision the government playing in the economy is a very limited one. We believe that the government should help Americans acquire the tools they need in order to thrive and make a good living, and then get out of the way. Government should be there, whenever possible, to provide financial assistance to Americans seeking a college education or technical training to gain an expertise in a specific career field. The government should promote self-sufficiency by giving the individual the tools he or she needs to be self-sufficient. The government should also make self-sufficiency easier to maintain by, we reiterate, taxing less of what working individuals earn.
We also call upon the federal government to restrain wasteful government spending. Government should be no different than any home or business. It should live within its means and, wherever possible, balance its budget and minimize its debt.
We openly acknowledge that as the majority in both houses of congress it has been Republicans who have routinely ignored this approach over the years. Accordingly, the PLU GOP calls upon both parties---Republican and Democrat---to end the wasteful pork-barrel spending that has existed in Washington D.C. for too long and to set responsible budgets that do not saddle ours and future generations with exorbitant debt.
For the economy to be prosperous and dynamic, the American people must be left more of their own money to spend, save, or invest as they see fit. We believe the individual American taxpayer, not the government, knows the best manner through which to handle their own money. For this reason, we support the president's tax cuts and advocate their permanent extension.
Moreover, we believe the federal tax code should be reformed altogether, with the current anti-growth IRS code being replaced by what the president called in his 2004 acceptance speech a "simpler, fairer, pro-growth code." Instead of discouraging economic growth by taxing earnings and savings and investment, we should tax consumption at one flat rate, with exemptions for those with the lowest incomes. Such a transition, estimates Harvard economist Dale Jorgenson, would permanently increase national income by 10-15 percent. It would undoubtedly be a huge wind to the sails of our economy to abolish the IRS, double taxation on savings, the death tax, and taxes on dividends and capital gains.
The role we do envision the government playing in the economy is a very limited one. We believe that the government should help Americans acquire the tools they need in order to thrive and make a good living, and then get out of the way. Government should be there, whenever possible, to provide financial assistance to Americans seeking a college education or technical training to gain an expertise in a specific career field. The government should promote self-sufficiency by giving the individual the tools he or she needs to be self-sufficient. The government should also make self-sufficiency easier to maintain by, we reiterate, taxing less of what working individuals earn.
We also call upon the federal government to restrain wasteful government spending. Government should be no different than any home or business. It should live within its means and, wherever possible, balance its budget and minimize its debt.
We openly acknowledge that as the majority in both houses of congress it has been Republicans who have routinely ignored this approach over the years. Accordingly, the PLU GOP calls upon both parties---Republican and Democrat---to end the wasteful pork-barrel spending that has existed in Washington D.C. for too long and to set responsible budgets that do not saddle ours and future generations with exorbitant debt.
'06 PLU GOP Platform: Iraq
Whether you agreed with the decision to liberate Iraq or not, that debate is immaterial to the one we need to have now that we are there. The question we must answer at this point is do we stay in Iraq until that country has established a stable, republican government and a capacity to secure itself, or do we withdraw—or set a timetable for withdrawal—before those objectives have been met? We, the PLU GOP, believe we must stay and fulfill the mission in Iraq, for several reasons.
One, to retreat from Iraq would make America less safe. It would leave us a defeated nation and the Islamic holy warriors and jihadists of the world would know it. They would become even more emboldened, more ruthless, and more murderous in their barbarous mission to kill Americans. As President Bush has said, the terrorists we are fighting in Iraq "will follow us" should we prematurely leave Iraq. Security here at home depends upon us winning the fight against terror in Iraq.
Second, an American retreat from Iraq would only empower Iran and North Korea in their pursuit and possession of nuclear weapons. Demonstrating America’s strength by staying in Iraq until victory will leave us in a much stronger position to check the belligerence of both rogue nations. The diplomacy of a strong and victorious nation carries much more weight and credibility than that of a defeated and disgraced one.
Third, to do anything other than fulfill our mission in Iraq would be to break the commitment we have made to the Iraqi people. They have begun the process of rebuilding their nation. They have voted in the midst of violence. They have fought and died for their nation. They have done all of this because the United States of America has stood behind them and promised to support them in their quest to build a new, free Iraq. It would be a tragic dishonor and blight upon this nation to break that promise.
Finally, we must stay in Iraq to honor the ultimate sacrifice thousands of brave American men and women have made there. They fought and died so that Iraq may be free and the United States and the world may be more secure. America must not forsake their sacrifice and we must insure they did not die for nothing. If for no other reason, we must stay in Iraq until our mission is complete for our lost servicemen and women. We owe them nothing less.
One, to retreat from Iraq would make America less safe. It would leave us a defeated nation and the Islamic holy warriors and jihadists of the world would know it. They would become even more emboldened, more ruthless, and more murderous in their barbarous mission to kill Americans. As President Bush has said, the terrorists we are fighting in Iraq "will follow us" should we prematurely leave Iraq. Security here at home depends upon us winning the fight against terror in Iraq.
Second, an American retreat from Iraq would only empower Iran and North Korea in their pursuit and possession of nuclear weapons. Demonstrating America’s strength by staying in Iraq until victory will leave us in a much stronger position to check the belligerence of both rogue nations. The diplomacy of a strong and victorious nation carries much more weight and credibility than that of a defeated and disgraced one.
Third, to do anything other than fulfill our mission in Iraq would be to break the commitment we have made to the Iraqi people. They have begun the process of rebuilding their nation. They have voted in the midst of violence. They have fought and died for their nation. They have done all of this because the United States of America has stood behind them and promised to support them in their quest to build a new, free Iraq. It would be a tragic dishonor and blight upon this nation to break that promise.
Finally, we must stay in Iraq to honor the ultimate sacrifice thousands of brave American men and women have made there. They fought and died so that Iraq may be free and the United States and the world may be more secure. America must not forsake their sacrifice and we must insure they did not die for nothing. If for no other reason, we must stay in Iraq until our mission is complete for our lost servicemen and women. We owe them nothing less.
Friday, November 03, 2006
Mike McGavick for U.S. Senate
(Letter to the Editor, The Mast, November 3, 2006 Volume LXXXIV, NO. 8)
From the war in Iraq to the deficit and health care, this nation is faced with significant challenges. The resolution of these challenges demands leaders and representatives who are serious about working with those with whom they both agree and disagree, not ones more interested in playing the game of partisan politics. We need leaders in this day and age, not politicians.
For this reason, the PLU GOP endorses Mike McGavick for U.S. Senate. Mike isn't interested in the politics as usual prevalent in Washington D.C. today. He isn't interested in the common practice of looking towards his party to know how to vote, or in engaging in the rancorous and bitter political discourse that has poisoned our political process.
Mike McGavick is dedicated to working with others to solve problems and confront challenges, and he has the experience to do it. When Mike took over at SAFECO Insurance as CEO the company was losing $1 billion a year. However, by demonstrating strong leadership and making tough decisions to solve problems, SAFECO was profitable by the time he left.
If elected to the Senate, Mike will demonstrate the same determination and leadership in solving the problems and challenges that confront our great nation. We agree with The Seattle Times: "McGavick...showed at SAFECO that he was able to take on big problems. We think he could make an innovative and influential senator for Washington."
We urge our fellow Lutes to cast their votes for Mike McGavick for U.S. Senate.
From the war in Iraq to the deficit and health care, this nation is faced with significant challenges. The resolution of these challenges demands leaders and representatives who are serious about working with those with whom they both agree and disagree, not ones more interested in playing the game of partisan politics. We need leaders in this day and age, not politicians.
For this reason, the PLU GOP endorses Mike McGavick for U.S. Senate. Mike isn't interested in the politics as usual prevalent in Washington D.C. today. He isn't interested in the common practice of looking towards his party to know how to vote, or in engaging in the rancorous and bitter political discourse that has poisoned our political process.
Mike McGavick is dedicated to working with others to solve problems and confront challenges, and he has the experience to do it. When Mike took over at SAFECO Insurance as CEO the company was losing $1 billion a year. However, by demonstrating strong leadership and making tough decisions to solve problems, SAFECO was profitable by the time he left.
If elected to the Senate, Mike will demonstrate the same determination and leadership in solving the problems and challenges that confront our great nation. We agree with The Seattle Times: "McGavick...showed at SAFECO that he was able to take on big problems. We think he could make an innovative and influential senator for Washington."
We urge our fellow Lutes to cast their votes for Mike McGavick for U.S. Senate.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Presidential Signing Statements
The ABA Task Force on Presidential Signing Statements and the Separation of Powers Doctrine purports to be standing up for the separation of powers and the rule of law in its stance opposing presidential signing statements. In fact, the ABA task force’s recommendations would controvert the separation of powers, in that they would infringe upon the president’s constitutional right and responsibility to execute the laws.
As chief executive in our constitutional system of government, per Section II of the constitution, it is the president’s responsibility to execute the laws of the United States. Requisite to executing a law is interpreting it. No one can deny that you cannot enforce a law without first determining its meaning. A presidential signing statement is simply a public revelation of that interpretation. Take away presidential signing statements and you ultimately take away nothing. Quoting from the editors of National Review, "presidents will have to interpret statutes, interpret the Constitution, and try to harmonize those interpretations, whether they announce their views in a signing statement or not."
The task force’s primary objection with presidential signing statements is that some of them contain a declaration from the president that he will not enforce a measure or aspect of the law he deems to be unconstitutional. This is, supposedly, "contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers." The task force advises that if the president deems a law to be unconstitutional he should veto it.
This is nonsense, both in practice and in principle. Does the task force really believe the president should veto every bill in whole if it contains one provision he deems to be unconstitutional? As Ed Whelan has pointed out at Bench Memos, this "position would lead, at best, to an insane game of chicken between the President and Congress and, quite probably, to a collapse of governmental operations."
Such a collapse would be unnecessary. As asserted by Chief Justice Marshall in Marbury, an opinion which the task force cites, "a legislative act contrary to the constitution is not law." Any act of congress contrary to the constitution is automatically voided by its very unconstitutionality. This is true whether or not the president vetoes it or the Supreme Court, or any lower court, declares it to be so.
Moreover, it is within the president’s power to not execute a law regardless of its constitutionality. This is not a contradiction or violation of the separation of powers doctrine, it is intrinsically a hallmark of it. As I just stated, attendant to possessing the power of execution is the right to use one’s own discretion in exercising that power. If, in using that discretion, the president elects not to enforce or execute a law than so be it. His right and possession of the executive power, within the constitutional framework of separate powers, allows him to do so. Just as congress’ sole power to legislate necessarily entails the right not to legislate, so too does the president’s right to execute the law necessarily entail the right not to execute.
This is how it must be if the separate powers system is to survive. For the congress or the judiciary to compel the president to execute a law would be for them to violate the boundaries composing the separation of powers and to usurp the executive powers of the president unto themselves. Compelling the branch which reserves the right to execute to actually execute is, in itself, an exercise of executive power. This is constitutionally intolerable.
How can this even be objected to? If you object to the president asserting his right to exercise discretion in the fulfillment of his duties and the exercise of his powers than you must also assert that the Justice Department, as an administrative agency of the executive branch, must prosecute every crime it believes to have been committed. After all, the decision not to prosecute the violation of law is, in fact, a decision not to execute the law.
Granted, the task force does not directly recommend that the president be compelled by congress or the judiciary to execute the laws. Instead, it recommends the next best thing, urging "Congress to enact legislation requiring the President promptly to submit to Congress an official copy of all signing statements he issues , and in any instance in which he claims the authority, or states the intention, to disregard or decline to enforce all or part of a law he has signed, or to interpret such a law in a manner inconsistent with the clear intent of Congress, to submit to Congress a report setting forth in full the reasons and legal basis for the statement."
Much is wrong with this.
One, in a system of co-equal branches with separate powers the congress has no authority or basis to compel the executive to explain why he did or didn’t exercise his executive powers in the manner he did or didn’t. If congress determines that the president exercised his power unlawfully or in contradiction to the constitution then they may impeach. This is the legislative’s check on the executive. Congress has no more right to compel the president to explain or justify the manner in which he exercised his executive power than either congress or the president do to compel the supreme court to justify or explain its decision not to hear a case appealed to it.
Second, the task force’s mention and defense of "the clear intent of Congress" is problematic, both because it is undeterminable and because it wouldn’t be controlling upon the president even if it was.
What would determine congressional intent? A committee report? A floor speech? There are five-hundred and thirty-five members in two houses of congress, all with their own unique motivations and interpretations behind voting to pass or reject a given bill. How do you glean one "clear" intent from that? The one way to insure a new law will never be executed by the president is to compel him to determine the undeterminable prior to the law’s implementation, which is exactly what we would be doing if we compelled the president to execute a law in conformity with "the clear intent of Congress."
Even if "clear intent" could be discerned, it still would not be controlling upon the president, for two reasons.
As Justice Antonin Scalia has pointed out, "it is the law that governs, not the intent of the lawgiver."1 In executing a law, the president is bound by the text of that law, not by whatever congress intended the law to say or mean.
Also, congressional intent behind a law is not controlling on the president in his enforcement of that law because congress does not have sacrosanct power over the legislative process.2 If it did, the framers would have allowed a congressional bill to become law without a presidential signature. The argument that congressional intent is controlling upon the meaning of a law is invalidated by the constitutionally provided presidential power to sign or veto a bill and the judiciary’s power to void a law as unconstitutional if necessary. It is a system we familiarly call checks and balances.
Critics of this piece may claim that I give the president immunity to do what he pleases with the law. Not at all. I assert that being possessed of the power and responsibility to execute the laws of the United States means the president has the attendant, incorrigible power to not execute a law, or aspect of a law, per his discretion. Being able to follow his own discretion and not enforce a law is a far cry from asserting he can act in contradiction and violation of the laws, which I do not assert. The right to inaction is not the same as a right to action unlawful.
The president, according to his Article II powers as chief executive of the laws of the United States, has an inherent right to not only interpret those laws, but to not, according to his own discretion, enforce those laws he deems unworthy of his enforcement. In our constitutional regime of separation of powers such is the president’s sovereign power. For congress to challenge this, or demand the president justify his use of that power, would be for it to unconstitutionally infringe upon the president’s executive power by exercising executive power itself. This, not presidential signing statements and their content, would violate the inviolable constitutional system of separate and distinct powers. Accordingly, I disagree with the ABA task force’s conclusions and arguments.
1. Scalia, Antonin (1997). A Matter of Interpretation. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. (p. 17.)
2. It has sacrosanct power over the power to legislate, or to craft and pass legislation, but it does not have sacrosanct power over the legislative process, which only begins with the crafting and passing of legislation and ultimately continues on into that piece of legislation becoming law.
As chief executive in our constitutional system of government, per Section II of the constitution, it is the president’s responsibility to execute the laws of the United States. Requisite to executing a law is interpreting it. No one can deny that you cannot enforce a law without first determining its meaning. A presidential signing statement is simply a public revelation of that interpretation. Take away presidential signing statements and you ultimately take away nothing. Quoting from the editors of National Review, "presidents will have to interpret statutes, interpret the Constitution, and try to harmonize those interpretations, whether they announce their views in a signing statement or not."
The task force’s primary objection with presidential signing statements is that some of them contain a declaration from the president that he will not enforce a measure or aspect of the law he deems to be unconstitutional. This is, supposedly, "contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers." The task force advises that if the president deems a law to be unconstitutional he should veto it.
This is nonsense, both in practice and in principle. Does the task force really believe the president should veto every bill in whole if it contains one provision he deems to be unconstitutional? As Ed Whelan has pointed out at Bench Memos, this "position would lead, at best, to an insane game of chicken between the President and Congress and, quite probably, to a collapse of governmental operations."
Such a collapse would be unnecessary. As asserted by Chief Justice Marshall in Marbury, an opinion which the task force cites, "a legislative act contrary to the constitution is not law." Any act of congress contrary to the constitution is automatically voided by its very unconstitutionality. This is true whether or not the president vetoes it or the Supreme Court, or any lower court, declares it to be so.
Moreover, it is within the president’s power to not execute a law regardless of its constitutionality. This is not a contradiction or violation of the separation of powers doctrine, it is intrinsically a hallmark of it. As I just stated, attendant to possessing the power of execution is the right to use one’s own discretion in exercising that power. If, in using that discretion, the president elects not to enforce or execute a law than so be it. His right and possession of the executive power, within the constitutional framework of separate powers, allows him to do so. Just as congress’ sole power to legislate necessarily entails the right not to legislate, so too does the president’s right to execute the law necessarily entail the right not to execute.
This is how it must be if the separate powers system is to survive. For the congress or the judiciary to compel the president to execute a law would be for them to violate the boundaries composing the separation of powers and to usurp the executive powers of the president unto themselves. Compelling the branch which reserves the right to execute to actually execute is, in itself, an exercise of executive power. This is constitutionally intolerable.
How can this even be objected to? If you object to the president asserting his right to exercise discretion in the fulfillment of his duties and the exercise of his powers than you must also assert that the Justice Department, as an administrative agency of the executive branch, must prosecute every crime it believes to have been committed. After all, the decision not to prosecute the violation of law is, in fact, a decision not to execute the law.
Granted, the task force does not directly recommend that the president be compelled by congress or the judiciary to execute the laws. Instead, it recommends the next best thing, urging "Congress to enact legislation requiring the President promptly to submit to Congress an official copy of all signing statements he issues , and in any instance in which he claims the authority, or states the intention, to disregard or decline to enforce all or part of a law he has signed, or to interpret such a law in a manner inconsistent with the clear intent of Congress, to submit to Congress a report setting forth in full the reasons and legal basis for the statement."
Much is wrong with this.
One, in a system of co-equal branches with separate powers the congress has no authority or basis to compel the executive to explain why he did or didn’t exercise his executive powers in the manner he did or didn’t. If congress determines that the president exercised his power unlawfully or in contradiction to the constitution then they may impeach. This is the legislative’s check on the executive. Congress has no more right to compel the president to explain or justify the manner in which he exercised his executive power than either congress or the president do to compel the supreme court to justify or explain its decision not to hear a case appealed to it.
Second, the task force’s mention and defense of "the clear intent of Congress" is problematic, both because it is undeterminable and because it wouldn’t be controlling upon the president even if it was.
What would determine congressional intent? A committee report? A floor speech? There are five-hundred and thirty-five members in two houses of congress, all with their own unique motivations and interpretations behind voting to pass or reject a given bill. How do you glean one "clear" intent from that? The one way to insure a new law will never be executed by the president is to compel him to determine the undeterminable prior to the law’s implementation, which is exactly what we would be doing if we compelled the president to execute a law in conformity with "the clear intent of Congress."
Even if "clear intent" could be discerned, it still would not be controlling upon the president, for two reasons.
As Justice Antonin Scalia has pointed out, "it is the law that governs, not the intent of the lawgiver."1 In executing a law, the president is bound by the text of that law, not by whatever congress intended the law to say or mean.
Also, congressional intent behind a law is not controlling on the president in his enforcement of that law because congress does not have sacrosanct power over the legislative process.2 If it did, the framers would have allowed a congressional bill to become law without a presidential signature. The argument that congressional intent is controlling upon the meaning of a law is invalidated by the constitutionally provided presidential power to sign or veto a bill and the judiciary’s power to void a law as unconstitutional if necessary. It is a system we familiarly call checks and balances.
Critics of this piece may claim that I give the president immunity to do what he pleases with the law. Not at all. I assert that being possessed of the power and responsibility to execute the laws of the United States means the president has the attendant, incorrigible power to not execute a law, or aspect of a law, per his discretion. Being able to follow his own discretion and not enforce a law is a far cry from asserting he can act in contradiction and violation of the laws, which I do not assert. The right to inaction is not the same as a right to action unlawful.
The president, according to his Article II powers as chief executive of the laws of the United States, has an inherent right to not only interpret those laws, but to not, according to his own discretion, enforce those laws he deems unworthy of his enforcement. In our constitutional regime of separation of powers such is the president’s sovereign power. For congress to challenge this, or demand the president justify his use of that power, would be for it to unconstitutionally infringe upon the president’s executive power by exercising executive power itself. This, not presidential signing statements and their content, would violate the inviolable constitutional system of separate and distinct powers. Accordingly, I disagree with the ABA task force’s conclusions and arguments.
1. Scalia, Antonin (1997). A Matter of Interpretation. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. (p. 17.)
2. It has sacrosanct power over the power to legislate, or to craft and pass legislation, but it does not have sacrosanct power over the legislative process, which only begins with the crafting and passing of legislation and ultimately continues on into that piece of legislation becoming law.
Monday, October 09, 2006
Time to Focus
It is an unserious political state we live in today. North Korea, a Last of the Mohicans of Stalinist states, tested a nuclear weapon yesterday, and has been acting provocatively for weeks and months now, even years. This behavior, and the country’s possession of nuclear weapons in general, pointedly threatens the physical security of the Pacific republics, namely Japan and South Korea, as well as our own. In a focused national political discussion, we would be weighing our options and debating and discussing the appropriate response and strategies to elect as a consequence.
Instead, we spent the past week indecorously indulging in an obsessive and microscopic scrutiny of the inappropriate e-mails of a perverted congressman to his underage page.
This is but another example in an odious trend. As we have waged a war on terror, sought to establish a stable and republican nation in Iraq, and attempted to stymie Iran from developing a nuclear capacity of its own, we have been consumed and distracted by frivolous "outing" of CIA agent and "Maccaca" scandals. As opposed to rolling up our sleeves and developing a plan to prevent a nation that has vowed to wipe Israel off the map from acquiring the means to do so, we have worshiped at the feet of the narcissistic Joe Wilson and gloried at the thought of Karl Rove in a prison jumpsuit.
My question is why? Why do we waste so much time on that which matters so little? We live in a serious time in a dangerous world, a situation insistent upon leaders and representatives who are concentrated on developing strategies to steward our republic through them, and upon a citizenry that will demand this statesmanship from their leaders.
This is especially true in an election season. We are only a month away from choosing representatives who will be among the individuals vested with the responsibility of addressing these issues for the next two years. If there is ever a time for sober contemplation, debate, and discussion, now is that time.
The tabloid issues that we have concentrated upon aren’t worth even peripheral notice, let alone unadulterated attention. That stuff deserves the scrutiny of Hollywood and the entertainment industry, not of our national political class and leadership. The issues we face are simply too big for us to dwell on matters so small and, ultimately, so inconsequential.
Instead, we spent the past week indecorously indulging in an obsessive and microscopic scrutiny of the inappropriate e-mails of a perverted congressman to his underage page.
This is but another example in an odious trend. As we have waged a war on terror, sought to establish a stable and republican nation in Iraq, and attempted to stymie Iran from developing a nuclear capacity of its own, we have been consumed and distracted by frivolous "outing" of CIA agent and "Maccaca" scandals. As opposed to rolling up our sleeves and developing a plan to prevent a nation that has vowed to wipe Israel off the map from acquiring the means to do so, we have worshiped at the feet of the narcissistic Joe Wilson and gloried at the thought of Karl Rove in a prison jumpsuit.
My question is why? Why do we waste so much time on that which matters so little? We live in a serious time in a dangerous world, a situation insistent upon leaders and representatives who are concentrated on developing strategies to steward our republic through them, and upon a citizenry that will demand this statesmanship from their leaders.
This is especially true in an election season. We are only a month away from choosing representatives who will be among the individuals vested with the responsibility of addressing these issues for the next two years. If there is ever a time for sober contemplation, debate, and discussion, now is that time.
The tabloid issues that we have concentrated upon aren’t worth even peripheral notice, let alone unadulterated attention. That stuff deserves the scrutiny of Hollywood and the entertainment industry, not of our national political class and leadership. The issues we face are simply too big for us to dwell on matters so small and, ultimately, so inconsequential.
Friday, October 06, 2006
Your Head vs. Your Heart
The recent Republican primary for the U.S. Senate in Rhode Island was another manifestation of the perpetual conundrum members of both parties face in a primary, especially when they are in a state predominantly inclined towards the other party. Does one vote for the candidate most ideologically homologous to themself, or do they vote for the candidate who may be farther to the left or right than they are but who ultimately stands the greatest chance of winning the general election?
When you actually are in this situation, the inner debate is deafening. Your heart begs you to follow your conscience and vote for the candidate whose principles match the neatest with your own. Your head curtly responds that your blind adherence to principle will likely mean that none of your principles end up being represented by the candidate of the other party who won because you chose the ideologically-symbiotic candidate over the one who could have actually–you know– won.
Both heart and head are persuasive, and trying to resolve the two gives you both heartburn and a massive headache. But putting that aside, to best serve both you must side with your head–doing so ultimately best serves your heart.
Every voter of every party and ideology seeks a candidate who will best represent their personal principles in office. But to represent someone’s principles in office, a candidate must be in a position to get elected to that office in the first place. This means that a primary voter must not only decide which candidate will best represent their principles, but also which one has the best, or maybe only chance of getting elected to that office.
Critics may decry this approach as unprincipled, but I would contend that simply finding the candidate most representative of your principles, without regard to his ability to get into office and in a position to represent your principles, is itself unprincipled. Adhering to and maintaining principle sometimes means sacrificing a portion of it so that the greater portion of it may be preserved. Is not a conservative Republican, in effect, foreswearing his conservative Republican principles if, by choosing a conservative Republican over a moderate in the primary, he allows a liberal Democrat to be elected to office? The moderate may not represent the conservative Republican’s principles to the letter, but he will represent them more than the liberal Democrat will.
Of course, ideally the candidate who represents one’s principles the most and the candidate most capable of winning the general election are one in the same. Realistically however, that is not always the case, and when it isn’t the principled primary voter must decide which candidate will represent their principles the most. Part of that decision must include the determination of who has the best chance of winning the election, or at least a fair to good chance of winning it.
Ultimately, this can be simplified into one question: Which electable candidate represents the greater balance of my principles? An unwillingness to ask this question, in primary contests and situations such as that in Rhode Island, is tantamount to losing all your eggs because you tried to grab and carry too many at once. The preservation of principle sometimes requires sacrificing a portion of it to preserve the rest. Amputating your foot is painful, but if that is what it takes to save your leg than so be it.
When you actually are in this situation, the inner debate is deafening. Your heart begs you to follow your conscience and vote for the candidate whose principles match the neatest with your own. Your head curtly responds that your blind adherence to principle will likely mean that none of your principles end up being represented by the candidate of the other party who won because you chose the ideologically-symbiotic candidate over the one who could have actually–you know– won.
Both heart and head are persuasive, and trying to resolve the two gives you both heartburn and a massive headache. But putting that aside, to best serve both you must side with your head–doing so ultimately best serves your heart.
Every voter of every party and ideology seeks a candidate who will best represent their personal principles in office. But to represent someone’s principles in office, a candidate must be in a position to get elected to that office in the first place. This means that a primary voter must not only decide which candidate will best represent their principles, but also which one has the best, or maybe only chance of getting elected to that office.
Critics may decry this approach as unprincipled, but I would contend that simply finding the candidate most representative of your principles, without regard to his ability to get into office and in a position to represent your principles, is itself unprincipled. Adhering to and maintaining principle sometimes means sacrificing a portion of it so that the greater portion of it may be preserved. Is not a conservative Republican, in effect, foreswearing his conservative Republican principles if, by choosing a conservative Republican over a moderate in the primary, he allows a liberal Democrat to be elected to office? The moderate may not represent the conservative Republican’s principles to the letter, but he will represent them more than the liberal Democrat will.
Of course, ideally the candidate who represents one’s principles the most and the candidate most capable of winning the general election are one in the same. Realistically however, that is not always the case, and when it isn’t the principled primary voter must decide which candidate will represent their principles the most. Part of that decision must include the determination of who has the best chance of winning the election, or at least a fair to good chance of winning it.
Ultimately, this can be simplified into one question: Which electable candidate represents the greater balance of my principles? An unwillingness to ask this question, in primary contests and situations such as that in Rhode Island, is tantamount to losing all your eggs because you tried to grab and carry too many at once. The preservation of principle sometimes requires sacrificing a portion of it to preserve the rest. Amputating your foot is painful, but if that is what it takes to save your leg than so be it.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Response
Has our national political discourse really become so poisoned and so irrational that when we disagree with each other we pour upon the other a cacophony of personal and ad hominem attacks instead of actually stating our disagreements in a civil interchange of reasoned argumentation? Don't get me wrong, the recent barrage of base expletives was quite amusing, in the same way that watching the guests of the Jerry Springer show act in the same manner is. But the entertainment value of the behavior of those who took issue with me is far outweighed by the appalling commentary such behavior provides on the churlish nature of our national political dialogue.
If you disagree with an opinion that I express, or believe that I have no standing to express that opinion, then say so in a respectful and mature manner. Provide a counter-argument to my own, and I will be happy to respond in like manner. As a politically active young man, I relish any opportunity to discuss issues of national importance with those who agree with me as well as with those who do not agree with me.
Though we may not agree, and may disagree vigorously, we don't have to be disagreeable or acrimonious towards each other. No matter how disparate our views and beliefs may be, we're all Americans and we all want what is best for our great country. That is something all of us forget far too often when we debate each other nowadays.
To respond to the "chickenhawk" label that has been thrown around so cavalierly, it is a banal tactic and attempt to stifle any discussion or debate. Instead of responding to the points and merits of my piece, my detractors simply called me a "chickenhawk" in language frosted in profanities and insults, with the clear purpose of intimidating me into silence. It was pathetic.
To simply respond to an able-bodied civilian’s hawkish comments by calling him a "chickenhawk" is as intellectually bankrupt as a conservative responding to a liberal's strong criticism of America with the vacuous phrase, "Love it or leave it!" It isn’t an argument. It doesn’t even pretend to be an argument. It doesn’t even deserve to be on a bumper sticker.
The "chickenhawk" rationale is also appallingly juvenile. It harkens me back to the days when a classmate and I disagreed over whether our second-grade teacher, Mrs. Hebert, was a good teacher. He said she wasn't, having just been told to pull a card by her for talking while she was. I argued that she was, pointing out that she helped us whenever we were struggling with an activity---activities she always made educational and interesting. His response: "Well if you like her so much why don't you marry her?"
If an able-bodied civilian can't support the war---or think we should persevere until we do win---without going to fight and serve in that war himself, then neither can he support police attempts to bring down crime and defeat street gangs and organized crime without joining the local P.D. He can’t say that this country should be doing more to help the Gulf Coast rebuild following Hurricane Katrina unless he himself grabs his hammer and travels down there to help rebuild. He can't say more needs to be done by the international community to stem the AIDS epidemic in Africa unless he drops everything and goes over there as a relief worker either.
Such is, in my view, Swiss cheese logic, and I respectfully disagree with those who subscribe to it. One need not be one of the brave and heroic men and women fighting and winning the war over there to believe that they should be given the opportunity and the time to win it, or that the ultimate sacrifice thousands of Americans have given should not be forsaken.
There are many ways to serve your country, serving in the military is only one (though it is without a doubt the most noble of them). We do not have a shortage of highly-trained and highly-professional brave young men and women willing to serve in our military. What we do have is a shortage of leaders back home with the fortitude and willingness to let our armed forces complete the awesome job they are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For those who would like to know why I have not decided to enlist, I was a sophomore in high school when I made the commitment to myself to finish my education before I made a decision on which profession I would enter into. Whether that decision is to ultimately join America's professional fighting forces, or go to law school, or study history, I told myself I would finish college before I began down a specific career path.
The only development that could cause me to stray from this path is if there was a draft instituted. If called upon by my country I would gladly and enthusiastically serve without hesitation. But finishing my education is very important to me, and I hope doing so will give me the tools necessary to serve my country in the future, in whatever capacity that may be.
For those who take issue with the opinions I have expressed and the decision that I have made, especially those veterans who expressed themselves here, I respect your position and where you are coming from. My only regret in all of this is that your positions were not expressed in a civil or respectful manner. I hope they will be in the future. If that is too much to ask, the Jerry Springer Show is always looking for guests.
If you disagree with an opinion that I express, or believe that I have no standing to express that opinion, then say so in a respectful and mature manner. Provide a counter-argument to my own, and I will be happy to respond in like manner. As a politically active young man, I relish any opportunity to discuss issues of national importance with those who agree with me as well as with those who do not agree with me.
Though we may not agree, and may disagree vigorously, we don't have to be disagreeable or acrimonious towards each other. No matter how disparate our views and beliefs may be, we're all Americans and we all want what is best for our great country. That is something all of us forget far too often when we debate each other nowadays.
To respond to the "chickenhawk" label that has been thrown around so cavalierly, it is a banal tactic and attempt to stifle any discussion or debate. Instead of responding to the points and merits of my piece, my detractors simply called me a "chickenhawk" in language frosted in profanities and insults, with the clear purpose of intimidating me into silence. It was pathetic.
To simply respond to an able-bodied civilian’s hawkish comments by calling him a "chickenhawk" is as intellectually bankrupt as a conservative responding to a liberal's strong criticism of America with the vacuous phrase, "Love it or leave it!" It isn’t an argument. It doesn’t even pretend to be an argument. It doesn’t even deserve to be on a bumper sticker.
The "chickenhawk" rationale is also appallingly juvenile. It harkens me back to the days when a classmate and I disagreed over whether our second-grade teacher, Mrs. Hebert, was a good teacher. He said she wasn't, having just been told to pull a card by her for talking while she was. I argued that she was, pointing out that she helped us whenever we were struggling with an activity---activities she always made educational and interesting. His response: "Well if you like her so much why don't you marry her?"
If an able-bodied civilian can't support the war---or think we should persevere until we do win---without going to fight and serve in that war himself, then neither can he support police attempts to bring down crime and defeat street gangs and organized crime without joining the local P.D. He can’t say that this country should be doing more to help the Gulf Coast rebuild following Hurricane Katrina unless he himself grabs his hammer and travels down there to help rebuild. He can't say more needs to be done by the international community to stem the AIDS epidemic in Africa unless he drops everything and goes over there as a relief worker either.
Such is, in my view, Swiss cheese logic, and I respectfully disagree with those who subscribe to it. One need not be one of the brave and heroic men and women fighting and winning the war over there to believe that they should be given the opportunity and the time to win it, or that the ultimate sacrifice thousands of Americans have given should not be forsaken.
There are many ways to serve your country, serving in the military is only one (though it is without a doubt the most noble of them). We do not have a shortage of highly-trained and highly-professional brave young men and women willing to serve in our military. What we do have is a shortage of leaders back home with the fortitude and willingness to let our armed forces complete the awesome job they are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For those who would like to know why I have not decided to enlist, I was a sophomore in high school when I made the commitment to myself to finish my education before I made a decision on which profession I would enter into. Whether that decision is to ultimately join America's professional fighting forces, or go to law school, or study history, I told myself I would finish college before I began down a specific career path.
The only development that could cause me to stray from this path is if there was a draft instituted. If called upon by my country I would gladly and enthusiastically serve without hesitation. But finishing my education is very important to me, and I hope doing so will give me the tools necessary to serve my country in the future, in whatever capacity that may be.
For those who take issue with the opinions I have expressed and the decision that I have made, especially those veterans who expressed themselves here, I respect your position and where you are coming from. My only regret in all of this is that your positions were not expressed in a civil or respectful manner. I hope they will be in the future. If that is too much to ask, the Jerry Springer Show is always looking for guests.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Letter to the Editor, THE WEEKLY STANDARD
TO THE EDITOR:
David Gelernter’s eloquent piece on the scourge "hate crime" classifications represent in our legal system and upon our society gives voice to the sentiments I have long held. The one aspect I would add to his argument however, is the troubling precedent these laws create by criminalizing thought. By criminally defining a certain ideology or prejudice of thought in politically correct terms today, I fear we have begun the descent down a slippery slope of regulating or criminalizing other thought or opinion , such as the government sponsored history found in some European nations that Gerard Alexander documented in your publication a few months ago. As George Will stated in his column some months back, "Hate crimes are, in effect, thought crimes. Hate crime laws mandate enhanced punishments for crimes committed as a result of, or at least when accompanied by, particular states of mind of which the government particularly disapproves. Governments that feel free to stigmatize, indeed criminalize, certain political thoughts and attitudes will move on to regulating what expresses such thoughts and attitudes -- speech."
Any criminalization of thought or opinion is antithetical to democracy. It is the action itself that is a crime, and its moral reprehensibility is neither diminished nor accentuated by the motivation behind it. As Mr. Gelernter put it, "Murders done for love or any other reason are just as bad."
David Gelernter’s eloquent piece on the scourge "hate crime" classifications represent in our legal system and upon our society gives voice to the sentiments I have long held. The one aspect I would add to his argument however, is the troubling precedent these laws create by criminalizing thought. By criminally defining a certain ideology or prejudice of thought in politically correct terms today, I fear we have begun the descent down a slippery slope of regulating or criminalizing other thought or opinion , such as the government sponsored history found in some European nations that Gerard Alexander documented in your publication a few months ago. As George Will stated in his column some months back, "Hate crimes are, in effect, thought crimes. Hate crime laws mandate enhanced punishments for crimes committed as a result of, or at least when accompanied by, particular states of mind of which the government particularly disapproves. Governments that feel free to stigmatize, indeed criminalize, certain political thoughts and attitudes will move on to regulating what expresses such thoughts and attitudes -- speech."
Any criminalization of thought or opinion is antithetical to democracy. It is the action itself that is a crime, and its moral reprehensibility is neither diminished nor accentuated by the motivation behind it. As Mr. Gelernter put it, "Murders done for love or any other reason are just as bad."
Monday, September 11, 2006
Win This War
As we remember those Americans lost on this day five years ago it is important to remember the best manner through which we can honor them: remaining steadfast in our effort to fight and win the war of which they were the first casualties.
As trying and painful a war it is to wage, and as much as we may all wish it to be over, we have no other choice left to us but to fight it as hard and as vigorously as it takes, for as long as it takes. The security and well-being of not only this generation, but of generations still unborn, depends upon our willingness to fight and defeat the enemies of democratic civilization today and into the future.
Our fathers and grandfathers accepted this responsibility and confronted these enemies when their age demanded it. Should ours be the generation to forsake their sacrifice and surrender that which they fought and died for on the sands of Iwo Jima and Normandy? Shall ours be the first generation to decline the duty to secure for our children the blessings of peace, security, and liberty?
The thousands of brave and heroic men and women now serving in the armed forces have answered this in the negative. They have and continue to answer the calling of their age. May those whom they serve and sacrifice for at home, and those who lead them more importantly, render the identical answer.
This war is a fight we can and will win, so long as we maintain the will to win it.
As trying and painful a war it is to wage, and as much as we may all wish it to be over, we have no other choice left to us but to fight it as hard and as vigorously as it takes, for as long as it takes. The security and well-being of not only this generation, but of generations still unborn, depends upon our willingness to fight and defeat the enemies of democratic civilization today and into the future.
Our fathers and grandfathers accepted this responsibility and confronted these enemies when their age demanded it. Should ours be the generation to forsake their sacrifice and surrender that which they fought and died for on the sands of Iwo Jima and Normandy? Shall ours be the first generation to decline the duty to secure for our children the blessings of peace, security, and liberty?
The thousands of brave and heroic men and women now serving in the armed forces have answered this in the negative. They have and continue to answer the calling of their age. May those whom they serve and sacrifice for at home, and those who lead them more importantly, render the identical answer.
This war is a fight we can and will win, so long as we maintain the will to win it.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Sen. Lieberman's Primary Defeat
I suppose the partisan Republican is a happy man today. Looking for relief from the negative Republican-centric tenor of the national discussion this election year, the defeat of Sen. Joe Lieberman to Ned Lamont in the Connecticut Democratic primary last night brings into public scrutiny the Democratic Party’s alarming wartime hostility to hawkish foreign policy and military action. In consequence, that perusal of public discourse may now very well shift from the Republicans and their deficiencies to the Democrats and theirs.
That is one way to look at it, and a cavalierly political and partisan way at that.
Though I am a Republican, and in that sense partisan, I find no joy or solace in Sen. Lieberman’s defeat. Now is not the time for partisanship. It is a time of war and elevated national consequence. It is a time for statesmanship. On ninety-five percent of the issues the senator and I completely disagree. He is a stalwart liberal Democrat, I am a stalwart conservative Republican.
But that is secondary to the fact that Sen. Joseph Lieberman is an unapologetic hawk in symbiosis with the great statesmen—Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, and Senator Henry Jackson—and traditions of a once great party. He is admirably willing to cast aside partisan interest in favor of supporting and strengthening America’s ability to win in Iraq and defeat the great evil of our age: Eighth-Century Islamic fascism.
Joe Lieberman is an honorable man and a credit to the Senate and to his country. In this time of war his statesmanship—his a-partisan courage—is needed now as much as ever, yet it seems to be in such short supply. It is a war we did not initiate, nor is it one we want. But it is a war we must win. To maliciously cut down the few statesmen who understand this and act accordingly despite the immediate partisan and personal implications is as reprehensible as it is self-defeating.
Ours is an age that transcends parties and factions, we need leaders who do the same. We need more Joe Liebermans. It is a sad tragedy that his courage of conviction and indelible principle have earned him the rebuke of his own party.
That is one way to look at it, and a cavalierly political and partisan way at that.
Though I am a Republican, and in that sense partisan, I find no joy or solace in Sen. Lieberman’s defeat. Now is not the time for partisanship. It is a time of war and elevated national consequence. It is a time for statesmanship. On ninety-five percent of the issues the senator and I completely disagree. He is a stalwart liberal Democrat, I am a stalwart conservative Republican.
But that is secondary to the fact that Sen. Joseph Lieberman is an unapologetic hawk in symbiosis with the great statesmen—Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, and Senator Henry Jackson—and traditions of a once great party. He is admirably willing to cast aside partisan interest in favor of supporting and strengthening America’s ability to win in Iraq and defeat the great evil of our age: Eighth-Century Islamic fascism.
Joe Lieberman is an honorable man and a credit to the Senate and to his country. In this time of war his statesmanship—his a-partisan courage—is needed now as much as ever, yet it seems to be in such short supply. It is a war we did not initiate, nor is it one we want. But it is a war we must win. To maliciously cut down the few statesmen who understand this and act accordingly despite the immediate partisan and personal implications is as reprehensible as it is self-defeating.
Ours is an age that transcends parties and factions, we need leaders who do the same. We need more Joe Liebermans. It is a sad tragedy that his courage of conviction and indelible principle have earned him the rebuke of his own party.
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Take Heed
There seems to be an increasing perception among the punditry that, barring drastic change, Democrats will win control of the House in the November elections. Should this happen, it is important that we keep in mind why it will happen. (That it could happen I have no doubt, that it is an inevitability, I do.)
A Democratic House would not be the product of a popular realignment towards the Democratic Party, for the American public is as disgusted with Republicans as they are with Democrats. The public opinion polls so many eagerly seize upon as evidence that Republicans are doomed and a Democratic ascension is nigh show no public affinity for Democrats. Quite the opposite, the public places a pox on both houses. In fact, in an age of hyper-partisanship one of the few aspects of the American political landscape that actually is bi-partisan is the preponderant negative esteem the electorate holds Republicans and Democrats in. This explains why many incumbents of both parties are vulnerable at this juncture, and a November of the American people’s discontent may just lead to a lot of suddenly unemployed members of congress, from each side of the aisle.
The single, glaring problem with this for Republicans is that, as the majority party, such an omnipotent anti-incumbent inclination will inexorably result in the defeat of more Republican incumbents than Democratic, and possibly lead to a Democratic House. This possibility brings into light an important dynamic at play in this election cycle, a cycle in which, depending upon the result, many are likely to misread or misrepresent the significance of. Should Democrats take the House and/or the Senate it will not be because of any realignment towards Democrats and Democratic principles (How could it be, given that the Democrats are all too often a party without principles), nor, for that matter, will it be the fruits of a highly motivated Democratic base. In the last election cycle the Democratic base was motivated to the point where they were foaming at the mouth in murderous hatred for the president and the Democrats still lost the presidential race and seats in both houses.
A Democratic victory, should one occur, will be based upon an anti-incumbent mood which they are equally the brunt of but, as the minority party in a two-party system, are also paradoxically the ultimate beneficiary of.
Even more paradoxically, Democrats might win the House because of a popular revulsion among conservatives and Republicans at the very traits Democrats of the contemporary flavor represent. Republican political liabilities stem from the fact that national conservatives are aghast at the profligate, big-government style of governance the Republican congress has drifted towards, a style in which the Democratic Party irrefutably embodies. For all the across-the-board increases in spending that occurred under the Republicans watch, Democrats routinely charge them and the president with under-funding everything. How deviantly ironic would it be if on January 3, 2007 Democrats owed their newfound majority to revulsion at a form of governance which fits perfectly with their political and governing philosophies? Or, put in another manner, bemuse yourself at the possibility that a year or two in the future a negative reaction to profligate governance in 2006 turns out to be the cause of....heightened profligate governance.
The effect this would have on the political dynamics going into 2008 and beyond I’ll leave for another day, but I will close with a word of caution to any who would misinterpret or exaggerate the significance of a Democratic victory this year. This victory would not mean, as I reiterate, a realignment towards liberalism or the Democratic Party; or the end of conservatism (a theory the inveterate liberal E.J. Dionne hopefully [or maybe hopelessly] posited this week). One victorious election does not a realignment make, and if Democrats do win (after losing the last two elections, arguably three) it will be in spite of themselves. It will be the yield of a popular odium towards a wayward Republican congress so deep that it will have compensated for a similar inclination towards the Democratic Party. The electoral soil may be fertile for a fruitful Democratic election day this year but it is barren for a sustainable Democratic majority or enduring Democratic political prosperity. Jubilant Democrats and despondent Republicans take heed.
A Democratic House would not be the product of a popular realignment towards the Democratic Party, for the American public is as disgusted with Republicans as they are with Democrats. The public opinion polls so many eagerly seize upon as evidence that Republicans are doomed and a Democratic ascension is nigh show no public affinity for Democrats. Quite the opposite, the public places a pox on both houses. In fact, in an age of hyper-partisanship one of the few aspects of the American political landscape that actually is bi-partisan is the preponderant negative esteem the electorate holds Republicans and Democrats in. This explains why many incumbents of both parties are vulnerable at this juncture, and a November of the American people’s discontent may just lead to a lot of suddenly unemployed members of congress, from each side of the aisle.
The single, glaring problem with this for Republicans is that, as the majority party, such an omnipotent anti-incumbent inclination will inexorably result in the defeat of more Republican incumbents than Democratic, and possibly lead to a Democratic House. This possibility brings into light an important dynamic at play in this election cycle, a cycle in which, depending upon the result, many are likely to misread or misrepresent the significance of. Should Democrats take the House and/or the Senate it will not be because of any realignment towards Democrats and Democratic principles (How could it be, given that the Democrats are all too often a party without principles), nor, for that matter, will it be the fruits of a highly motivated Democratic base. In the last election cycle the Democratic base was motivated to the point where they were foaming at the mouth in murderous hatred for the president and the Democrats still lost the presidential race and seats in both houses.
A Democratic victory, should one occur, will be based upon an anti-incumbent mood which they are equally the brunt of but, as the minority party in a two-party system, are also paradoxically the ultimate beneficiary of.
Even more paradoxically, Democrats might win the House because of a popular revulsion among conservatives and Republicans at the very traits Democrats of the contemporary flavor represent. Republican political liabilities stem from the fact that national conservatives are aghast at the profligate, big-government style of governance the Republican congress has drifted towards, a style in which the Democratic Party irrefutably embodies. For all the across-the-board increases in spending that occurred under the Republicans watch, Democrats routinely charge them and the president with under-funding everything. How deviantly ironic would it be if on January 3, 2007 Democrats owed their newfound majority to revulsion at a form of governance which fits perfectly with their political and governing philosophies? Or, put in another manner, bemuse yourself at the possibility that a year or two in the future a negative reaction to profligate governance in 2006 turns out to be the cause of....heightened profligate governance.
The effect this would have on the political dynamics going into 2008 and beyond I’ll leave for another day, but I will close with a word of caution to any who would misinterpret or exaggerate the significance of a Democratic victory this year. This victory would not mean, as I reiterate, a realignment towards liberalism or the Democratic Party; or the end of conservatism (a theory the inveterate liberal E.J. Dionne hopefully [or maybe hopelessly] posited this week). One victorious election does not a realignment make, and if Democrats do win (after losing the last two elections, arguably three) it will be in spite of themselves. It will be the yield of a popular odium towards a wayward Republican congress so deep that it will have compensated for a similar inclination towards the Democratic Party. The electoral soil may be fertile for a fruitful Democratic election day this year but it is barren for a sustainable Democratic majority or enduring Democratic political prosperity. Jubilant Democrats and despondent Republicans take heed.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Do Not Fail Israel
I have heard rumblings on the radio in the last few days that the United States has informed Israel that it can only provide political cover for its efforts against Hezbollah for another ten to fourteen days. I hope this is not the case, and if it is, shame on the Bush Administration and the United States of America for not standing by and supporting Israel—an honorable democracy and every bit the victim of terror that we are, if not more—in its fight against an evil that would destroy it.
We are in the same boat as the Israelis. When we were attacked on 9/11, and the lives of thousands of our fellow Americans were lost, did we not vow to destroy and bring to justice those responsible, and those who aimed to do it again? Is it not that generational pursuit that we are now engaged in? Why would we not—nay, how could we not—stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel, a nation that is engaged in the same situation and pursuit we are (and have been for much longer than we have), in this time of struggle?
Israel’s fight is our fight, and their enemies are our enemies and the enemies of free people throughout the world. Hezbollah’s destruction would not only make Israel more secure, it would make the Middle East and the free world more secure, and the world itself a better place.
Instead of emasculating Israel in its time of need, we should stand squarely beside them. We should unequivocally declare, with as much force, moral certitude, and resolution as we did in those days following 9/11, that we support Israel’s right in this endeavor and share its might in fighting terrorist evil for as long as it takes.
I hope and pray we, the United States of America, will not fail Israel at a moment when it fights for us every bit as much as it fights for itself.
We are in the same boat as the Israelis. When we were attacked on 9/11, and the lives of thousands of our fellow Americans were lost, did we not vow to destroy and bring to justice those responsible, and those who aimed to do it again? Is it not that generational pursuit that we are now engaged in? Why would we not—nay, how could we not—stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel, a nation that is engaged in the same situation and pursuit we are (and have been for much longer than we have), in this time of struggle?
Israel’s fight is our fight, and their enemies are our enemies and the enemies of free people throughout the world. Hezbollah’s destruction would not only make Israel more secure, it would make the Middle East and the free world more secure, and the world itself a better place.
Instead of emasculating Israel in its time of need, we should stand squarely beside them. We should unequivocally declare, with as much force, moral certitude, and resolution as we did in those days following 9/11, that we support Israel’s right in this endeavor and share its might in fighting terrorist evil for as long as it takes.
I hope and pray we, the United States of America, will not fail Israel at a moment when it fights for us every bit as much as it fights for itself.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Comment Response
Comment-"Thoughts on the Middle East"
Okay, I read your blog and understood every other word (haha j.k) and agreed with what you said. However, if you don't mind I do have a few questions for you:
1. This is just your personal opinion. Honestly, do you feel that this is, or very likely could be, the early rumblings of WWIII? How long can we keep using diplomacy to stall a full force confrontation between the terrorists and those they attack? I think you realize that all the diplomacy in the world will not stop them from eventually attacking again.
2. Why are the terrorists (and Iran, Syria, anywhere that harbors them) against Israel and western civilization as a whole in the first place? Why did they first begin attacking Israel and the U.S.A? What are their motives, desires, etc.?
3. Do you frequently use so many large words in your normal, day to day conversations or only when you are writing and/or speaking on political issues?
Those were just some things I was wondering about and you seem informed enough that I can at least consider your opinon, so I look forward to your response. If it will be a long response and you'd rather respond by email or something let me know, k?
Anonymous:
1. Whether this is the beginning of World War III or not, I don’t know. Someone will have to explain to me more clearly what exactly is meant by the term or characterization "World War III".
I do believe that a confrontation between—individually or in a combination of—Israel, the United States, and the democratic world with nations such as Syria and Iran is probably inevitable. We are already in a full-force confrontation with Islamist terrorism.
As I stated in my post, Iran has cataclysmic ambitions and will very likely spark a confrontation with the West, especially as they continue to feel greater pressure and isolation with the burgeoning democracy growing on their doorstep in Iraq.
I don’t see the value of diplomacy when you are dealing with nations and groups who seek your destruction, as the Islamo-fascist ideology and its adherents seek ours.
2. A lot of their motivation is their fascistic, nihilistic religious outlook. They see Western culture and democracy as a threat or abomination towards that outlook. As the leader and standard bearer of Western culture and democracy, the United States is naturally their target. They clearly desire a medievalist Islamic civilization built upon the ruins of modern western culture.
Israel is the only viable, Western-style democracy in the Middle East at this point, so they are naturally a primary target. Israel is also located on holy land that radical Islamists believe is theirs and that Israel has no right to. These people refuse to recognize Israel’s right to exist after all, and actively promise and seek its destruction. Their anti-Semitism is also a large motivation for their murder.
A more basic reason for their beliefs and actions is that they are, plain and simple, evil; and will employ evil means to reach their ends.
3. Yes, I usually do use such words in most of my conversation, especially in conversations, written or spoken, concerning politics and current events. The level and formality of the conversation generally dictates the level and formality of my verbiage.
I hope my answers are to your satisfaction. If not let me know and I will be glad to elaborate and/or clarify further. Thank you for the questions and for visiting my site. I hope you will do so regularly.
Cracker: I always appreciate the kind words and encouragement. You have been my most loyal reader and friend from the beginning of this site and I am very grateful for that.
Okay, I read your blog and understood every other word (haha j.k) and agreed with what you said. However, if you don't mind I do have a few questions for you:
1. This is just your personal opinion. Honestly, do you feel that this is, or very likely could be, the early rumblings of WWIII? How long can we keep using diplomacy to stall a full force confrontation between the terrorists and those they attack? I think you realize that all the diplomacy in the world will not stop them from eventually attacking again.
2. Why are the terrorists (and Iran, Syria, anywhere that harbors them) against Israel and western civilization as a whole in the first place? Why did they first begin attacking Israel and the U.S.A? What are their motives, desires, etc.?
3. Do you frequently use so many large words in your normal, day to day conversations or only when you are writing and/or speaking on political issues?
Those were just some things I was wondering about and you seem informed enough that I can at least consider your opinon, so I look forward to your response. If it will be a long response and you'd rather respond by email or something let me know, k?
Anonymous:
1. Whether this is the beginning of World War III or not, I don’t know. Someone will have to explain to me more clearly what exactly is meant by the term or characterization "World War III".
I do believe that a confrontation between—individually or in a combination of—Israel, the United States, and the democratic world with nations such as Syria and Iran is probably inevitable. We are already in a full-force confrontation with Islamist terrorism.
As I stated in my post, Iran has cataclysmic ambitions and will very likely spark a confrontation with the West, especially as they continue to feel greater pressure and isolation with the burgeoning democracy growing on their doorstep in Iraq.
I don’t see the value of diplomacy when you are dealing with nations and groups who seek your destruction, as the Islamo-fascist ideology and its adherents seek ours.
2. A lot of their motivation is their fascistic, nihilistic religious outlook. They see Western culture and democracy as a threat or abomination towards that outlook. As the leader and standard bearer of Western culture and democracy, the United States is naturally their target. They clearly desire a medievalist Islamic civilization built upon the ruins of modern western culture.
Israel is the only viable, Western-style democracy in the Middle East at this point, so they are naturally a primary target. Israel is also located on holy land that radical Islamists believe is theirs and that Israel has no right to. These people refuse to recognize Israel’s right to exist after all, and actively promise and seek its destruction. Their anti-Semitism is also a large motivation for their murder.
A more basic reason for their beliefs and actions is that they are, plain and simple, evil; and will employ evil means to reach their ends.
3. Yes, I usually do use such words in most of my conversation, especially in conversations, written or spoken, concerning politics and current events. The level and formality of the conversation generally dictates the level and formality of my verbiage.
I hope my answers are to your satisfaction. If not let me know and I will be glad to elaborate and/or clarify further. Thank you for the questions and for visiting my site. I hope you will do so regularly.
Cracker: I always appreciate the kind words and encouragement. You have been my most loyal reader and friend from the beginning of this site and I am very grateful for that.
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Thoughts on the Middle East
Prior to the recent elevation and extension of belligerence in the Middle East the conflict between Israel and Islamic terror had been a game of charades, in multiple ways. The endurance of armed confrontation and terrorism, and the specter of impending war, have ended this duplicitous game however, and exposed its illegitimacy.
Under the previous state there was an imaginary distinction between the Palestinian factions perpetrating acts of terror upon Israel and Yasser Arafat and his Palestinian Authority. Though Arafat encouraged, sponsored, and benefitted form the terror, he managed to publicly condemn specific acts of terror each time they occurred so as to assiduously maintain the charade that he was not responsible, but instead needed more power, more leniency, to bring the terror factions within his society to bear. As a product, he was never held to account by the international community for his actions and Israel was prevented from responding to the original and culpable source of the terror it lay victim to.
This distinction can be claimed no longer. The Palestinians perpetrating the terror, primarily Hamas, are now the democratically elected representatives and authority of the Palestinian people. Though many skeptical of democracy in the Middle East have pointed to the Palestinian elections as proof of its poisoned fruits, those elections have brought clarity to the state of affairs within the Palestinian territories and their approach to Israel. Terror is systemic of the Palestinian culture carefully incubated by the late terror-in-chief Arafat, and has become, officially and undeniably, state policy. Israel may now, at long last, respond accordingly.
The rising crises has also betrayed the longstanding charade that the impetus for terror against Israel was its occupation of disputed lands. Israel has vacated Gaza and southern Lebanon, but still Hamas and Hezbollah wage war against Israel. Why? As we all suspected, the cause of terror was never about occupation but Israel’s very existence. Short of Israel’s destruction nothing will appease these terrorist murders and induce them to lay down their arms, missiles, and bomb-laden belts.
Israel’s only refuge is to destroy those who would destroy them, precisely what they seem to be on the verge of doing in Lebanon. International pleas for another cease-fire and "moderation" are null. Cease-fires only give the terrorists respite and opportunity to prepare for their next round of murderous atrocities. Why would anyone want to extend this failed history and the tragic cycle of terror and violence?
Israel is entirely within its right to invade Lebanon. Hezbollah has entered Israel and captured Israeli soldiers, and they have used southern Lebanon as a base from which to launch attacks. Anyone who would prevent Israel from entering Lebanon and eliminating Hezbollah would deny Israel the right to defend itself and would grant Hezbollah the sanctuary to wage war against Israel with impunity.
Even further extension by Israel would be justified no less. Targeting Hamas and Hezbollah alone is tantamount to mowing the lawn—it’s only going to grow back. Neither of those respective organizations would be able to operate with the lethality they do were it not for their state patrons of Syrian and Iran. Through their proxies, both nations are able to wage war against Israel without actually waging war. This tactic is an attempt to obfuscate their involvement and to immunize themselves from being held to account, by both Israel and the international community, and it should not be tolerated.
Could anyone, in good conscience, prevent Israel from waging war against nations who unscrupulously wage war against it and, in regards to Iran, have promised to exterminate them?
If anyone could, or would, let it not be the United States. Iran specifically does not just wage war against Israel, for Israel, due to it’s standing in the region as the lone, western democracy, is, in effect, only a proxy for democratic civilization, for whom the United States is the leading standard-bearer and representative.
Iran’s belligerence has been poorly hidden, and it only grows bolder as the world fecklessly responds to its nuclear development. A confrontation with the west is all but inevitable, and should the Israelis decide to confront the Iranian threat to its existence before it possesses a nuclear capacity the United States should stand alongside them. As Iran would destroy Israel, it would also destroy, and is actively seeking to destroy, democracy and stability in the Middle East. Iran’s apocalyptic ambitions and visions of its own place and mission in the region could not be more dangerous if allowed to burgeon.
Diplomacy itself may not be dead, but with Iran categorically determined to acquire nuclear capability the possibility of diplomacy is only viable in regards to the international community coming together to stymie Iran. It is possible, I suppose, that crippling sanctions could bring down the regime. But if those sanctions failed to work, diplomacy for diplomacy’s sake must be abandoned.
If a nuclear Iran is as "unacceptable" as everyone says it is—and it is—than the international community, or at least those within the community responsible enough, must do what is necessary to prevent it. That burden should not be Israel’s to shoulder alone. A nuclear Iran threatens all of democratic civilization, not just Israel, and all of democratic civilization must be prepared to stop it.
Under the previous state there was an imaginary distinction between the Palestinian factions perpetrating acts of terror upon Israel and Yasser Arafat and his Palestinian Authority. Though Arafat encouraged, sponsored, and benefitted form the terror, he managed to publicly condemn specific acts of terror each time they occurred so as to assiduously maintain the charade that he was not responsible, but instead needed more power, more leniency, to bring the terror factions within his society to bear. As a product, he was never held to account by the international community for his actions and Israel was prevented from responding to the original and culpable source of the terror it lay victim to.
This distinction can be claimed no longer. The Palestinians perpetrating the terror, primarily Hamas, are now the democratically elected representatives and authority of the Palestinian people. Though many skeptical of democracy in the Middle East have pointed to the Palestinian elections as proof of its poisoned fruits, those elections have brought clarity to the state of affairs within the Palestinian territories and their approach to Israel. Terror is systemic of the Palestinian culture carefully incubated by the late terror-in-chief Arafat, and has become, officially and undeniably, state policy. Israel may now, at long last, respond accordingly.
The rising crises has also betrayed the longstanding charade that the impetus for terror against Israel was its occupation of disputed lands. Israel has vacated Gaza and southern Lebanon, but still Hamas and Hezbollah wage war against Israel. Why? As we all suspected, the cause of terror was never about occupation but Israel’s very existence. Short of Israel’s destruction nothing will appease these terrorist murders and induce them to lay down their arms, missiles, and bomb-laden belts.
Israel’s only refuge is to destroy those who would destroy them, precisely what they seem to be on the verge of doing in Lebanon. International pleas for another cease-fire and "moderation" are null. Cease-fires only give the terrorists respite and opportunity to prepare for their next round of murderous atrocities. Why would anyone want to extend this failed history and the tragic cycle of terror and violence?
Israel is entirely within its right to invade Lebanon. Hezbollah has entered Israel and captured Israeli soldiers, and they have used southern Lebanon as a base from which to launch attacks. Anyone who would prevent Israel from entering Lebanon and eliminating Hezbollah would deny Israel the right to defend itself and would grant Hezbollah the sanctuary to wage war against Israel with impunity.
Even further extension by Israel would be justified no less. Targeting Hamas and Hezbollah alone is tantamount to mowing the lawn—it’s only going to grow back. Neither of those respective organizations would be able to operate with the lethality they do were it not for their state patrons of Syrian and Iran. Through their proxies, both nations are able to wage war against Israel without actually waging war. This tactic is an attempt to obfuscate their involvement and to immunize themselves from being held to account, by both Israel and the international community, and it should not be tolerated.
Could anyone, in good conscience, prevent Israel from waging war against nations who unscrupulously wage war against it and, in regards to Iran, have promised to exterminate them?
If anyone could, or would, let it not be the United States. Iran specifically does not just wage war against Israel, for Israel, due to it’s standing in the region as the lone, western democracy, is, in effect, only a proxy for democratic civilization, for whom the United States is the leading standard-bearer and representative.
Iran’s belligerence has been poorly hidden, and it only grows bolder as the world fecklessly responds to its nuclear development. A confrontation with the west is all but inevitable, and should the Israelis decide to confront the Iranian threat to its existence before it possesses a nuclear capacity the United States should stand alongside them. As Iran would destroy Israel, it would also destroy, and is actively seeking to destroy, democracy and stability in the Middle East. Iran’s apocalyptic ambitions and visions of its own place and mission in the region could not be more dangerous if allowed to burgeon.
Diplomacy itself may not be dead, but with Iran categorically determined to acquire nuclear capability the possibility of diplomacy is only viable in regards to the international community coming together to stymie Iran. It is possible, I suppose, that crippling sanctions could bring down the regime. But if those sanctions failed to work, diplomacy for diplomacy’s sake must be abandoned.
If a nuclear Iran is as "unacceptable" as everyone says it is—and it is—than the international community, or at least those within the community responsible enough, must do what is necessary to prevent it. That burden should not be Israel’s to shoulder alone. A nuclear Iran threatens all of democratic civilization, not just Israel, and all of democratic civilization must be prepared to stop it.
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