Achorn's Wisdom on Chafee/Laffey - What's Right I

In his Tuesday Projo column about a possible Laffey/Chafee primary, Edward Achorn gets a lot of things right, at least one important thing wrong. What’s right?

1. In the terminology of Mickey Kaus, he “advances the ball” for those of us trying to understand the mechanics of the issue. Achorn tells us something about what the $500,000 contribution consists of. As AnchorRising commentor Will has been informing us, it’s not a $500,000 cash contribution…

The Republican National Committee is trying to funnel $500,000 to Senator Chafee by means of providing the state GOP with a sophisticated voter-identification system.

I’d like to know a bit more about this. Who is being identified? Is this a one-time only list of information, or is it something that can be used in the future if properly maintained? This information also calls into question Senator Chafee’s statement that he is not interested in the $500,000. Is the Senator not interested in using the voter-identification system? Is his really aware of what’s going on with the Rhode Island party, or are the national operatives acting on his behalf without consulting him?

2. A tad obliquely, Achorn gets the fundamental issue surrounding the rule 11(a) waiver correct

Robert Manning refused to sign off on the gift -- an approval required under party rules -- unless it is available to all Republican candidates.

The clear implication, of course, is that the “voter-identification system” is being donated on the condition that it will NOT be available to all Republican candidates. Is Steve Laffey the only person excluded, or are there others?

Achorn's Wisdom on Chafee/Laffey - What's Right II

More things that Edward Achorn got right in Tuesday’s projo column on Chafee/Laffey…

3. Remember, you heard it here first…

The Republicans desperately tried to "buy off" Mr. Laffey by offering to support him for the powerless (and pointless) job of lieutenant governor.

Laffey was never going to accept a “powerless and pointless job”. This illustrates the fundamental difference between Laffey and the Republican establishment. The establishment said, “You can win a statewide election!”. Laffey said, “But I want to be able to do something after I win”. The establishment looked back at him with a confused look on their collective face. Achorn makes this point himself…

The Old Guard, which supports Senator Chafee, accepts that the GOP here is so outmuscled and outnumbered that it will never be able to do much more than cut deals with Democrats and pick off a seat here and there. The Young Turks believe that it is time to do more, to shake up the status quo in Rhode Island.

4. Finally, Achorn mentions that Laffey is actually interested in campaigning for office – by this, I mean actually going to fundraisers and rallies after filing the paperwork. The establishment Republicans in this state have never quite understood that retail campaigning is an important part of the political process, especially in a small state like Rhode Island. Laffey’s ability to win votes through actual campaigning is the second biggest wild-card in the primary election.

So what did Achorn get wrong? And what’s the first biggest wild-card in the primary? You’ll have to stay tuned to AR to find out…

Senator Chafee can settle the $500,000 Question

Senator Chafee has it within his power to settle the state Republican party’s $500,000 question. Here is the Senator’s press secretary, Steven Hourahan, in the Warwick Beacon…

As for reports that the national GOP will withhold $500,000 in campaign funds from Rhode Island if the Senate race results in a Republican primary, Hourahan said that would be a great shame and would harm many state and local-level Republicans seeking office in 2006.

“It would be a huge opportunity [if the state got the money],” Hourahan said.

That being said, Hourahan also said the Chafee campaign had no intention of taking a dime of that money, should it come through anyway.

If the Senator is sincere about not wanting the money, he should issue an immediate public call for the $500,000 in assistance to be released to the state party, without any strings attached. If the money is contributed without strings, it can be released without any waivers being required. What better way to show a commitment to state party building?

Able Danger: Does it Lead to a Further Chinese Communist Connection to the Clinton Administration?

It is impossible to know right now what is true in the Able Danger story. With that in mind, Power Line has this interesting posting that highlights potential issues we should keep in mind as we watch events unfold on this story.

The China story is not a new one; here is a previous posting, which has additional links at the bottom to other postings. The recent joint Russian-Chinese military war games only reinforce some of the points in those postings.

Nor is the Clinton Administration's connection to illicit behaviors by Chinese Communists a new story. As I wrote in this posting:

We cannot forget that the real price America is likely to pay for the Clinton-Gore years will not be from inappropriate sexual dalliances, but from that administration's peculiar dealings with China, which Bill Gertz outlines in his 2001 book entitled Betrayal: How the Clinton Administration Undermined American Security. Character does matter in the end.

In addition to the inappropriate transfer of technology to China during the Clinton administration, do not forget that over 120 people either exercised Fifth Amendment rights or fled the country when asked to testify under oath about highly questionnable Chinese foreign money contributions to the Clinton-Gore campaign.

So character does matter in the end and Bill Clinton is Exhibit #1. He showed empirically that the underlying unethical habits that led him to conduct dishonorable behaviors in private did carry over into some important public behaviors as President.

The Ginsburg Precedent and John Roberts

Saturday’s Projo (pg. A3 in the paper version) has an article on a local event intended to rally support for the President’s Supreme Court nominee, John Roberts. For those interested in the substance of the discussion (rather than the luncheon menu, which is the major focus of the opening of the Projo article), the event’s sponsor, Progress for America, has created a four-minute video titled “The Ginsburg Precedent”. (Strange Projo decision #2, they link to the moveon.org in the electronic version of their story, but not to the Progress for America website, nor the “The Ginsburg Precedent” video).

What is the Ginsburg precedent? Here it is in the words of Joe Biden, directly from the video, speaking to Ruth Bader Ginsburg at her Supreme Court confirmation hearing...

I do think it’s appropriate to point out that you not only have a right to choose what you will answer and not answer, but, in my view, you should not answer a question of what your view will be on an issue that, clearly, is going to come before the court in 50 different forms, probably, over your tenure on the court.

Of course, Biden is famous for being a bit long-winded. Fortunately, Ginsburg herself gives a more succinct version. Again, from the video, directly from her confirmation hearing…

No hints, no forecasts, no previews.

We can be fairly certain that the Democrats suddenly believe that the Ginsburg precedent is outdated. The question is, will they even bother with a believable explanation of why, or will they simply try to wield power to obstruct the President?

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Don provides much additional information on the details of the Ginsburg precedent here.

Laffey and the Lieutenant Governorship

Charles Bakst has a follow-up column on the state Republican party’s $500,000 question. He mentions that Governor Carcieri may be involved in trying to get Steve Laffey to run for lieutenant governor. This is a bad idea, for at least two reasons.

First, it is a waste of effort. There is no way Steve Laffey will run for lieutenant governor.

But, for this post, I want to focus on a second reason. Even if the state Republican establishment could get Laffey to run for lieutenant governor (which they can’t), it would still be a bad idea for the party in the long term.

Lieutenant governor is a good move for a local pol seeking to achieve some statewide name recognition. But Steve Laffey doesn’t need to be lieutenant governor to draw attention to himself. And if he were to run and win, he would be taking away the chance for another Republican to generate statewide attention. The Republican “dream scenario” – Laffey winning lieutenant governor in 2006, and then running for governor in 2010 is actually a nightmare. In that scenario, chances for any new Republicans to develop statewide credentials are seriously reduced, and the party stays in exactly the same position it has been in since the election of Lincoln Almond.

In the long run, rather than putting all its effort into trying to strong-arm Laffey into running for the lieutenant governorship, the party would be better off focusing its efforts on finding some fresh-faced, candidates with future potential to run for lt. gov and secretary of state. The party needs a better plan for finding candidates than waiting for retired businessmen to enter Rhode Island politics.

National Republican Contributions to RI

Some people want me to believe that the national Republican party wants to donate $500,000 to the state Republican party, a full year before the election, because it is interested in improving the general health of the state party. If that is true, then the national party has dramatically changed its attitude towards Rhode Island in the past year.

Because of the Harwood and other scandals, the state Republican party was optimistic about its chances to pick up seats in both the Rhode Island Senate and General Assembly in 2004. So, in this potentially banner year, how much did the national Republicans contribute to Rhode Island? Well, according to opensecrets.org, which tracks campaign finance information, in 2004, the national party donated a grand total of $15,000 to the state party, contributing a single lump sum about a month before the election.

Now to be fair, the party did make substantial contributions in 2002, which like 2006, was a gubernatorial election year. But given this history, some Republicans in Rhode Island would like to know what strings are attached to the national party’s early $500,000 burst of generosity. Has the national party stipulated something like $485,000 of the money can only go to Lincoln Chafee and Don Carcieri, and that everyone else has to split up $15,000?

Fear and Hope in the Sudan

At TechCentralStation, I have an article giving some background on how the death of Southern Sudan's long-time leader John Garang is likely to effect the situation there.

Teaching Our Children Well: Rediscovering Moral Principles & History

This posting continues a conversation begun with the previous posting entitled Religious Without Being Morally Serious Vs. Morally Serious Without Being Religious.

Rather than the canard of there being some remnant trying to establish a theocracy in America, I would suggest there is a different dynamic going on. The culture war led by the secular left fundamentalists has accomplished one thing among the religious right that has not happened as significantly in past years: It has united the religious right around certain core moral principles, even though sub-groups of the religious right still - and will always likely - disagree on specific theological positions.

This trend is a potentially profound development. One of the common weaknesses of highly religious people (of both the secular left and religious right) is that they can speak in strident ways that do not seek or place value on developing a broadly held consensus based on some underlying common ground. The idea now that Jews, Roman Catholics and Evangelical Protestants could come together in a reasonably unified position about major moral issues is a significant development.

Most importantly, as Pope Benedict XVI recently stated, none of these groups is being asked to give up their particular religious beliefs. And that means that these groups are learning to use language that identifies a shared core of moral principles but expresses that core in ways that appeal to others outside their specific religious tradition. That represents the true meaning of tolerance, as George Weigel wrote in describing the relevancy of Pope John Paul II's teachings:

That is why John Paul relentlessly preached genuine tolerance: not the tolerance of indifference, as if differences over the good didn't matter, but the real tolerance of differences engaged, explored, and debated within the bond of a profound respect for the humanity of the other. Many were puzzled that this Pope, so vigorous in defending the truths of Catholic faith, could become, over a quarter-century, the world's premier icon of religious freedom and inter-religious civility. But here, too, John Paul II was teaching a crucial lesson about the future of freedom: Universal empathy comes through, not around, particular convictions.

In a separate article, Weigel elaborated on the connection between moral truth and freedom:

...freedom detached from moral truth - the "freedom of indifference" that dominated the high culture of the triumphant West - [is] inevitably self-cannibalizing.

Freedom untethered from truth is freedom's worst enemy. For if there is only your truth and my truth, and neither one of us recognizes a transcendent moral standard (call it "the truth") by which to adjudicate our differences, then the only way to settle the argument is for you to impose your power on me, or for me to impose my power on you.

Freedom untethered from truth leads to chaos; chaos leads to anarchy; and since human beings cannot tolerate anarchy, tyranny as the answer to the human imperative of order is just around the corner. The false humanism of the freedom of indifference leads first to freedom's decay, and then to freedom's demise...

It is the practice of genuine tolerance among the religious traditions that represents a profound development. It also begins to return us to principles articulated by our country's Founders, few of whom would be classified as religious fanatics but many of whom commented frequently on the importance of morality and religion in public life.

For example, John Adams offered these comments on the importance of morality & religion:

We have no government armed with the power capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and true religion. Our Constitution is made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other...

Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone, which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure than they have it now, they may change their rulers and the forms of government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty.

George Washington made these famous comments in his Farewell Address:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness -- these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

Adam's and Washington's points are elaborated on further from additional sources in a July 4 posting entitled Happy Birthday, America! where the moral uniqueness of the American proposition is highlighted.

Why does this matter? Because there are long-term adverse consequences to the overt displays of contempt toward reasoned moral perspectives playing an important role in the public debate.

Reflect on what lessons we are teaching our children about moral seriousness when the quality of the public debate about important moral issues and their formal instruction on moral thought are shallow - or worse. Joseph Knippenberg comments on the importance of teaching students to think more deeply about such matters in a posting entitled To Nurture Greater Ethical Awareness, Students Need Practice in Moral Discernment:

Let me state this...in both secular and religious ways.

The secular way of putting is that...philosophy is indeed necessary, not in order logically to derive moral principles, but rather to defend them against relativist and nihilist doubts. Aristotle himself works within a moral horizon, offering the most systematic possible account of gentlemanly virtue, but not deducing it from non-moral first principles. A latter-day Aristotelian can offer a defense of sound common sense against the inventions of theory.

From a religious point of view, the college and university experience can help students become more articulate and thoughtful defenders of their faith, open to the larger world, but not vulnerable and defenseless in the face of its challenges.

...the two things most needful for ethics in higher education are religion and philosophy...

Rather than the ridiculous argument that such training is all part of an attempt to turn America into a theocracy, some of us would posit that our children cannot grow into responsible adults without some appreciation for and understanding of universal moral principles, discoverable either through faith or reason or both.

There are equally serious long-term adverse consequences to the overt displays of contempt toward the importance of knowing history, including the Founding Principles of our American tradition.

And that leads naturally into how we teach history to our children, a subject discussed in a posting entitled We Are Paying Quite a Price for Our Historical Ignorance, which included these words:

Our schools teach history ideologically. They teach the message, not the truth...They are propaganda machines....Ignorance of history destroys our judgment...To forget your own history is (literally) to forget your identity. By teaching ideology instead of facts, our schools are erasing the nation's collective memory...There is an ongoing culture war between Americans who are ashamed of this nation's history and those who acknowledge with sorrow its many sins and are fiercely proud of it anyway...If you are proud of this country and don't want its identity to vanish, you must teach U.S. history to your children. They won't learn it in school. This nation's memory will go blank unless you act.

We have a moral obligation to teach our children well, to give them the tools necessary to live exemplary lives as free men and women. And that means equipping them with both knowledge of history and sufficient skills at moral discernment. Some of the secular left call such training a pathway toward theocracy. The rest of us call it historically-informed common sense.

Laffey, Chafee, Charlie, and the Outsiders

As a member of the “exotic subsample that votes in Republican primaries”, I would ask Projo political columnist Charles Bakst to give some further consideration to at least one of the points he made in his Tuesday column about a possible Lincoln Chafee/Steve Laffey primary…

I doubt that Rhode Island voters, even the exotic subsample that votes in Republican primaries, would welcome the idea that one of their senators is the target of a nationwide political assassination network.

I think Bakst is right about the underlying dynamic here; Rhode Islanders don’t like being told what to do by outside politicos.

However, at the moment, this dynamic is working in favor of Steve Laffey. I think “nationwide political assassination network” is a tad strong, but it is pretty clear that, as of today, the most prominent group of non-Rhode Islanders trying to impose their will on the state is the national Republican party in support of Chafee. Rhode Island Republicans won’t like having their party turned into a full-time subsidiary of the Chafee campaign without their permission.

URI Course: Not As Advertised

Nathaniel Nelson is a conservative URI student who has quite a story to tell about a Political Philosophy course that was much different than what he thought it would be.

Although the course was described as “Political Philosophy: Plato to Machiavelli,” and was meant to cover 2,000 years of political philosophy, our syllabus only had three books. Each of the three books had to deal with Machiavelli. As someone who wished to learn about political philosophy, I felt extremely frustrated by the end of the course. Instead, everything relating to Machiavelli was redirected to Professor Vocino’s obsession with sex.

Read the entire article to learn of the off-base and off-color nature of the class, taught by Michael Vocino, a tenured professor at URI who doesn't hold a PhD in the courses he teaches and whose research interest is "South Park." In addition, it would appear that nearly every course taught by Prof. Vocino, regardless of the course title, is comprised of endless banter regarding homosexuality. Nonetheless, it is NOT the sexual nature of the banter that is the issue, but the fact that Vocino is not teaching the course his students (or at least their parents!) expect him to be teaching. Prof. Vocino responded to the Frontpage article written by Nelson and David Horowitz in turn responded (their exchange is here). I encourage you to read Nelson's column and the exchange between Vocino and Horowitz. Remember, URI is our State University: we should expect the administration to hold the professors to a higher standard than this.

Religious Without Being Morally Serious Vs. Morally Serious Without Being Religious

The Wall Street Journal's Best of the Web nails this story about Pat Robertson:

Since we've defended the "religious right," we suppose we'd better say a word about Pat Robertson's latest foolishness, as reported by the Associated Press:

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson called on Monday for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, calling him a "terrific danger" to the United States. . . .

"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," Robertson said. "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war . . . and I don't think any oil shipments will stop." . . .

"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said.

"We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator," he continued. "It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

We agree that Chavez is a menace, but give us a break. Religious conservatives argue (to take an example) that embryonic stem-cell research is wrong because the sanctity of nascent life is absolute and thus outweighs any possible benefits. But Robertson is willing to countenance assassination because it is "easier" and "cheaper" than other ways of bringing about a desired outcome? It goes to show that one can be religious without being morally serious.

Mr. Robertson is indeed lacking in moral seriousness. Shame on him for talking so loosely and inappropriately.

On the other hand, James Taranto's editorial referenced above and entitled Why I'm Rooting for the Religious Right: Secular liberals show open contempt for traditionalists is a morally serious communication and worthy of further highlighting:

I am not a Christian, or even a religious believer, and my opinions on social issues are decidedly middle-of-the-road. So why do I find myself rooting for the "religious right"? I suppose it is because I am put off by self-righteousness, closed-mindedness, and contempt for democracy and pluralism--all of which characterize the opposition to the religious right.

One can disagree with religious conservatives on abortion, gay rights, school prayer, creationism and any number of other issues, and still recognize that they have good reason to feel disfranchised. This isn't the same as the oft-heard complaint of "anti-Christian bigotry," which is at best imprecise, since American Christians are all over the map politically. But those who hold traditionalist views have been shut out of the democratic process by a series of court decisions that, based on constitutional reasoning ranging from plausible to ludicrous, declared the preferred policies of the secular left the law of the land.

For the most part, the religious right has responded in good civic-minded fashion: by organizing, becoming politically active, and supporting like-minded candidates. This has required exquisite discipline and patience, since changing court-imposed policies entails first changing the courts, a process that can take decades...

In the past three elections, the religious right has helped to elect a conservative Republican president and a bigger, and increasingly conservative, Republican Senate majority. This should make it possible to move the courts in a conservative direction. But Senate Democrats, taking their cue from liberal interest groups, have responded by subverting the democratic process, using the filibuster to impose an unprecedented supermajority requirement on the confirmation of judges.

That's what prompted Christian conservatives to organize "Justice Sunday," last month's antifilibuster rally, at a church in Kentucky. After following long-established rules for at least a quarter-century, they can hardly be faulted for objecting when their opponents answer their success by effectively changing those rules.

This procedural high-handedness is of a piece with the arrogant attitude the secular left takes toward the religious right. Last week a Boston Globe columnist wrote that what he called "right-wing crackpots--excuse me, 'people of faith' " were promoting "knuckle-dragging judges." This contempt expresses itself in more refined ways as well, such as the idea that social conservatism is a form of "working class" false consciousness. Thomas Frank advanced this argument in last year's bestseller, "What's the Matter With Kansas?"

Liberal politicians have picked up the theme...

...It's not that [liberal Senator Feingold] sees the issues as unimportant, but that he does not respect the views of those who disagree. His views are thoughtful and enlightened; theirs are, as Mr. Frank describes them, a mindless "backlash."

This attitude is politically self-defeating, for voters know when politicians are insulting their intelligence...Many voters who aren't pro-life absolutists have misgivings about abortion on demand and about the death of Terri Schiavo. By refusing to acknowledge the possibility of thoughtful disagreement or ambivalence, Mr. Dean is giving these moderates an excellent reason to vote Republican.

Curiously, while secular liberals underestimate the intellectual seriousness of the religious right, they also overestimate its uniformity and ambition. The hysterical talk about an incipient "theocracy"--as if that is what America was before 1963, when the Supreme Court banned prayer in public schools--is either utterly cynical or staggeringly naive.

Last week an article in The Nation, a left-wing weekly, described the motley collection of religious figures who gathered for Justice Sunday. A black minister stood next to a preacher with a six-degrees-of-separation connection to the Ku Klux Klan. A Catholic shared the stage with a Baptist theologian who had described Roman Catholicism as "a false church."

These folks may not be your cup of tea, but this was a highly ecumenical group, united on some issues of morality and politics but deeply divided on matters of faith. The thought that they could ever agree enough to impose a theocracy is laughable.

And the religious right includes not only Christians of various stripes but also Orthodox Jews and even conservative Muslims. Far from the sectarian movement its foes portray, it is in truth a manifestation of the religious pluralism that makes America great. Therein lies its strength.

Chafee Power Play by the National Republican Party?

The Projo’s description of why Republican party official Robert Manning is blocking a $500,000 contribution from the national party to the state party needs a bit of refinement. Here’s how Scott MacKay’s story describes it…

Under the system established by the Republican National Committee, Manning can single-handedly block the money from state GOP coffers by virtue of his position as national committeeman.

But Manning’s power to block funding from coming to Rhode Island is not as broad as the above paragraph indicates. It is based on rule 11(a) of the national Republican Party’s rules

The Republican National Committee shall not, without the prior written and filed approval of all members of the Republican National Committee from the state involved, contribute money or in-kind aid to any candidate for any public or party office except the nominee of the Republican Party or a candidate who is unopposed in the Republican primary after the filing deadline for that office….

Manning only has the power to block the money if it is being designated for a specific candidate prior to his or her nomination. The question that needs to be asked about this $500,000 is how much of it has been designated by the national party solely for the support of Lincoln Chafee?

More on American Will to Win a War

To amplify Don's previous post, read what Max Borders has to say in a column over at TCS. He labels it "Vietnam Syndrome" and echoes many of the points mentioned by both Preston and Frum. He also has some of his own ideas as to how to combat this creeping mindset.

First, the Administration needs constantly to remind Americans of the vision, not just the discreet goals. The war is no longer just about quelling the insurgency, if it ever was. The war has always been about transforming Iraq into an example of peace, prosperity and successful liberal institutions in a dangerous part of the world. No one believes Iraq can be an oasis. It is enough that the Iraqi people have a hand in their own destiny and that they are prepared to accept the transformative power of the rule of law. Such transformations may have short-term costs. But in the longer term, Iraq can be a catalyst for change that makes us all more secure.

Second, we the people need to think longer term. Our obsession with quick victories and homeward-bound troops should be tempered by the knowledge of what is at stake. Our all-volunteer forces are professional fighters who understand that they have been called to serve in real conflict. If we accept the neoconservative vision of the United States' role in the world, we should be prepared for the possibility of other, future engagements as we project our power globally for the sake of a comprehensive liberal order. Minimally, we are in a strategic position in the Middle East. With troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US is geographically poised to deal with Iran as an emerging nuclear threat. For that reason alone, we should not be so eager to pull out.

Finally, the media will have to understand that, while they can never be "objective," they have a responsibility fairly to address many facets of an event. Criticism, debate and even dissent are healthy elements of a free society. But the media should be aware of its responsibility to provide the broadest range of relevant facts and perspectives so readers can shape more informed opinions. That means, when it comes to Iraq we need the bad news and the good. Instead of journalistic integrity we get a competition among spin doctors who selectively include or omit at will. We get Cindy Sheehan ad nauseum. We get Abu Ghraib and daily death tolls. And we get those who use their editorial powers to further their own agendas. To treat Vietnam Syndrome, this will have to change.

Does America Have the Sustained Will to Win at Post-Modern Warfare?

Bryan Preston, of JunkYardBlog, is one of the guest bloggers on Michelle Malkin's site and he has posted a very important piece on the American mindset regarding our battle against Islamofascists in the War on Terror:

The war we are fighting, the one that includes Iraq as a theatre of combat but encompasses a second theatre in Afghanistan and many smaller ones in Africa, the Philippines and elsewhere, is a post-modern war. That is this war's one striking similarity to the Cold War, of which Vietnam was a theatre we happened to lose without losing a single battle. How did we lose that theatre without losing any battles? Can the same thing happen again today?

We lost Vietnam because it was the first post-modern war theatre, and we failed to appreciate that. One man did appreciate it, though, but unfortunately for us he commanded the other side. His name was General Vo Nguyen Giap, and he commanded the North Vietnamese army from the 1950s through the 1970s. In that time he defeated in succession France (at that time a world power), the United States (a superpower) and China (a rising regional power). The latter is especially interesting--Giap studied infowar under Mao Zedong in the 1930s...Giap managed to defeat three nations whose military capabilities were vastly superior to his own. He may have been the 20th Century's most intelligent general.

How did Giap do it? In short, he discovered how to make his own troops expendable proxies, while he waged the actual war in the mind of his opponent. With the US, he discovered that we are unbeatable in combat but we are political hemophiliacs. Prick us in just the right spot, and we will bleed ourselves to death. The facts on the battlefield become secondary to the facts as we perceive them, whether those perceptions are accurate or not. The Tet Offensive was Giap's greatest show of post-modern warfare. It was an unmitigated disaster for his own troops, who were slaughtered all across Vietnam during that uprising. But it crystallized in the US political mind as a defeat for us that presaged inevitable defeat in the war itself, thanks mostly to the way the anti-war movement and the media portrayed Tet. Giap went on to lose Tet and every other battle after it, but he won the war. He won with a post-modern war strategy, the only type of strategy that can defeat us.

Principally, he played to the US anti-war movement, using it as a psychological nuclear weapon to devastate our will to fight...Absent a coherent counter message coming from our own leadership at the time, through the Johnson and Nixon administrations, Giap's message prevailed...We won every battle but the one that mattered most--the one that took place in the American mind.

It can happen again today. We premised this war not so much on a nation's right of self-defense as on our moral superiority over the enemy. We do happen to be morally superior to Osama bin Laden and his head-chopping henchmen, but our war premise had the effect of leaving us vulnerable to any flimsy charge either the caliphascist enemy or the anti-American agitators in the West could throw at us, and they have managed to throw quite a lot at us: Abu Ghraib, false allegations of mistreatment at Gitmo, old charges of US crimes in the MidEast, our support for Israel, whatever small offense or canard our enemies could come up with. Once our moral superiority is punctured, our rationale for war loses much of its steam. And absent a coherent and consistent counter message from our own leadership, the enemy's narrative begins to take hold: We're bogged down in a fruitless war in Iraq, we should never have invaded in the first place, our leaders are liars, etc.

We're not getting that coherent and consistent message from the Bush administration. The facts are available, but we're getting a muddle of same-old same-old and platitudes instead of a sustained morale-building information campaign. David Frum is sounding the alarm that we're in trouble in the post-modern aspects of the war, and I hope the White House gets the message...

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Power Line offers a related and valuable commentary, including these words:

...The sins of the news media in reporting on Iraq are mainly sins of omission. Not only do news outlets generally fail to report the progress that is being made, and often fail to put military operations into any kind of tactical or strategic perspective, they assiduously avoid talking about the overarching strategic reason for our involvement there: the Bush administration's conviction that the only way to solve the problem of Islamic terrorism, long term, is to help liberate the Arab countries so that their peoples' energies will be channelled into the peaceful pursuits of free enterprise and democracy, rather than into bizarre ideologies and terrorism. Partly this omission is due to laziness or incomprehension, but I think it is mostly attributable to the fact that if the media acknowledged that reforming the Arab world, in order to drain the terrorist swamp, has always been the principal purpose of the Iraq war, it would take the sting out of their "No large stockpiles of WMDs!" theme.

One wonders how past wars could have been fought if news reporting had consisted almost entirely of a recitation of casualties. The D-Day invasion was one of the greatest organizational feats ever achieved by human beings, and one of the most successful. But what if the only news Americans had gotten about the invasion was that 2,500 allied soldiers died that day, with no discussion of whether the invasion was a success or a failure, and no acknowledgement of the huge strategic stakes that were involved? Or what if such news coverage had continued, day by day, through the entire Battle of Normandy, with Americans having no idea whether the battle was being won or lost, but knowing only that 54,000 Allied troops had been killed by the Germans?...

We are conducting an experiment never before seen, as far as I know, in the history of the human race. We are trying to fight a war under the auspices of an establishment that is determined--to put the most charitable face on it--to emphasize American casualties over all other information about the war.

Sometimes it becomes necessary to state the obvious: being a soldier is a dangerous thing. This is why we honor our service members' courage. For a soldier, sailor or Marine, "courage" isn't an easily-abused abstraction--"it took a lot of courage to vote against the farm bill"--it's a requirement of the job.

Even in peacetime. The media's breathless tabulation of casualties in Iraq--now, over 1,800 deaths--is generally devoid of context. Here's some context: between 1983 and 1996, 18,006 American military personnel died accidentally in the service of their country. That death rate of 1,286 per year exceeds the rate of combat deaths in Iraq by a ratio of nearly two to one.

That's right: all through the years when hardly anyone was paying attention, soldiers, sailors and Marines were dying in accidents, training and otherwise, at nearly twice the rate of combat deaths in Iraq from the start of the war in 2003 to the present. Somehow, though, when there was no political hay to be made, I don't recall any great outcry, or gleeful reporting, or erecting of crosses in the President's home town...

The point? Being a soldier is not safe, and never will be...they never will be safe, in peacetime, let alone wartime.

...We would all prefer that our soldiers never be required to fight. Everyone--most of all, every politician--much prefers peace to war. But when our enemies fly airplanes into our skyscrapers; attack the nerve center of our armed forces; bomb our embassies; scheme to blow up our commercial airliners; try to assassinate our former President; do their best to shoot down our military aircraft; murder our citizens; assassinate our diplomats overseas; and attack our naval vessels--well, then, the time has come to fight. And when the time comes to fight, our military personnel are ready. They don't ask to be preserved from all danger. They know their job is dangerous; they knew that when they signed up. They are prepared to face the risk, on our behalf. All they ask is to be allowed to win.

It is, I think, a reasonable request...

Insanity brought on by Laffey-phobia

The Executive Director of the Rhode Island Republican party, Jeff Deckman, has a simple message for Steve Laffey. Run for lieutenant governor of Rhode Island, and you might become President of the United States.

Deckman thinks Laffey’s best shot at the big time would be via the lieutenant governor seat. If Laffey won Fogarty’s old seat – as of right now, his only challenge would come from state Sen. Elizabeth Roberts (D-Dist. 28) – he would be in a “perfect” position to succeed Gov. Donald Carcieri when his term runs out in 2008 [sic], said Deckman….“A lot of governors run for president and do very well,” Deckman said

If the state GOP wants to discourage Mayor Laffey from running against Lincoln Chafee in a Senate primary, they are going to have to find a different line of reasoning. Steve Laffey will not run for lieutenant governor of Rhode Island.

In any system where governor and lieutenant governor are elected separately, the lieutenant governorship is a weak position. The governor cannot share too much executive authority with a position that could fall under opposition control. Nothing in Steve Laffey’s public record indicates that he is interested in parking for four years in a weak position.

Contrary to Mr. Deckman’s advice, the lieutenant governorship is not a great stepping stone. The office itself provides no intrinsic visibility. All the lieutenant governorship would gain Laffey is a guarantee of support from the state Republican establishment for the 2010 election. Ask James Bennett, the Republican party’s endorsed 2002 gubernatorial candidate, how much that support is worth. (Bennett got crushed by Don Carcieri in a primary, 32%-68%)

Being lieutenant governor would mean four years of clearing every public move with the guy in charge. That’s not Laffey’s style. He wants to be the guy in charge.

Islamic Law and the Iraqi Constitution

Take a look at the phrasing, translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, on two of these anti-democratic posters from Iraq.

Whoever did not rule by what Allah has revealed, [those] are the infidels

Our constitution is the Koran, and there is no substitute for it… Who will defend us from the wrath of Allah if we choose a heretical constitution instead of Allah's law?

The “reasoning” of the anti-democratic forces is clear. They are trying to convince the Iraqi people that they must choose between Islamic law or laws based on a written constitution. This is, I believe, why the framers of the Iraqi Constitution are insisting on some sort of statement in the constitution along the lines of…

Islam is a main source for legislation and it is not permitted to legislate anything that conflicts with the fixed principles of its rules.

The pro-democracy forces, at least in part, are trying to emphasize that Islamic law and a constitutional system can co-exist. How far they are reaching beyond that goal depends largely upon the meaning, if any, of “the fixed principles of its rules” within an Islamic context.

A Vacation to Remember in Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Parks

My family just recently returned from a vacation in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks.

An unbelievably breathtaking experience.

Among other things, we were fortunate to see grizzly and brown bears, elk, bison, osprey, deer, moose and many other animals.

The physical features of both parks are simply stunning.

We had the pleasure of joining two other families in an educational program run by the Yellowstone Association. Our tour guide, Linda Young, was nothing less than outstanding. She had been a ranger in the Park for 6 years and experiences from those years allowed her to regale us with stories based on her deep knowledge of the Park. Many thanks to Linda for making it such a remarkable and enjoyable time.

An experience not to be missed.

Tapscott: Has the GOP Lost Its Soul?

Mark Tapscott has written a powerful editorial asking Has the GOP Lost Its Soul?

...Their differences [between President Reagan and Alaskan GOP Rep. Young] are nowhere more evident than on limiting government and reducing federal spending. Reagan said in his first inaugural speech that "government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." Today, Young crows about the $286.4 billion transportation bill to The New York Times, saying he "stuffed it like a turkey."

These differences didn’t start with Young, though. Republicans took over Congress in 1994 promising in the "Contract with America" to cut taxes, reduce federal spending and eliminate unneeded bureaucracy. They’ve used the same message to retain majorities in both chambers for all but a couple of the succeeding years.

Despite the GOP majority and its promises, federal spending – including wasteful pork barrel projects – has skyrocketed to record levels, especially as President Bush won the White House in 2000, the GOP kept the House and regained the Senate in 2002 and Bush gained re-election in 2004.

Federal outlays are going up so fast that in 2004 for the first time since World War II Washington spent more than $21,000 per household but collected only about $18,000 in revenue, causing budget deficits to explode. The rate of increase in spending was faster only during the "guns and butter" era of the Vietnam War and LBJ’s Great Society programs, according to figures compiled by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.

Simply put, the GOP majority has been spending federal tax dollars like drunken sailors since 2001, increasing outlays by an average of 7.25 percent annually. Inflation increased by a mere 2.0 percent average in those same years.

Bush has basically stepped aside, not once exercising his veto, compared to 78 vetoes by Reagan, who had to deal with powerful Democrat majorities in the House throughout his White House years.

Having a president who won't veto unleashes the big spenders. That transportation bill that Bush accepted and Young stuffed contained more than 6,500 "earmarks" – i.e. pork barrel projects. Reagan vetoed a 1987 transportation bill with a mere 152 projects.

The same stuffing pattern is seen in other legislation like the recently enacted energy bill that is "chock-full of corporate subsidies, targeted tax breaks, and other special interest handouts," according to Citizens Against Government Waste. Since 2003, the overall earmarks total has zoomed from 8,341 to nearly 14,000, the group recently told The Washington Post.

As for limiting government, the federal establishment is as complicated, duplicative and inefficient as ever, despite more than a decade of GOP majorities in Congress and several years of GOP control of both the White House and Congress....

Most worrisome about this GOP addiction to pork is that it undermines the party’s credibility as the entitlements crisis caused by the retirement of the Baby Boomers draws ever closer.

Medicare has nearly $30 trillion in unfounded mandates. Social Security faces annual deficits in excess of $100 billion beginning sometime around 2018. Add government employee pension obligations and those assumed from Fortune 500 corporations by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Commission and there will be no alternative to steeply higher taxes and major benefit cuts. Social, economic and financial chaos will follow, just as Reagan predicted in 1981.

Reagan expressed the GOP’s soul when he said "it is my intention to curb the size and influence of the federal establishment and to demand recognition of the distinction between the powers granted to the federal government and those reserved to the states or to the people." Progress was slow and sometimes reversed, but Reagan kept up the pressure.

Reagan’s GOP heirs are wasting his legacy.

This behavior by President Bush and the entire GOP Congress is scandalous. It is irresponsible and has adverse long-term consequences. It represents a complete breakdown in leadership.

These problems are not new to Anchor Rising. Here are some past postings on the general topic:

Favors for Everyone Except the Taxpaying Masses
Corporate Welfare Queens: Destructive Parasites Which Deserve to Die
The Highway Bill: "Egregious and Remarkable"
The Highway Bill: Another Example of Unacceptable Government Spending
Pigs at the Public Trough
More on the Misguided Incentives in the Public Sector
Pigs at the Public Trough, Revisited

A brief look at why these problems develop in the first place can be found in a posting entitled Misguided Incentives Drive Public Sector Taxation.

A more comprehensive look at why these problems develop in the first place can be found in a posting entitled A Call to Action: Responding to Government Being Neither Well-Meaning Nor Focused on the Public Interest.

Tapscott: Has GOP Lost Its Soul?

Mark Tapscott has written a powerful editorial asking Has the GOP Lost Its Soul?

...Their differences [between President Reagan and Alaskan GOP Rep. Young] are nowhere more evident than on limiting government and reducing federal spending. Reagan said in his first inaugural speech that "government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." Today, Young crows about the $286.4 billion transportation bill to The New York Times, saying he "stuffed it like a turkey."

These differences didn't start with Young, though. Republicans took over Congress in 1994 promising in the "Contract with America" to cut taxes, reduce federal spending and eliminate unneeded bureaucracy. They've used the same message to retain majorities in both chambers for all but a couple of the succeeding years.

Despite the GOP majority and its promises, federal spending - including wasteful pork barrel projects - has skyrocketed to record levels, especially as President Bush won the White House in 2000, the GOP kept the House and regained the Senate in 2002 and Bush gained re-election in 2004.

Federal outlays are going up so fast that in 2004 for the first time since World War II Washington spent more than $21,000 per household but collected only about $18,000 in revenue, causing budget deficits to explode. The rate of increase in spending was faster only during the "guns and butter" era of the Vietnam War and LBJ's Great Society programs, according to figures compiled by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.

Simply put, the GOP majority has been spending federal tax dollars like drunken sailors since 2001, increasing outlays by an average of 7.25 percent annually. Inflation increased by a mere 2.0 percent average in those same years.

Bush has basically stepped aside, not once exercising his veto, compared to 78 vetoes by Reagan, who had to deal with powerful Democrat majorities in the House throughout his White House years.

Having a president who won't veto unleashes the big spenders. That transportation bill that Bush accepted and Young stuffed contained more than 6,500 "earmarks" - i.e. pork barrel projects. Reagan vetoed a 1987 transportation bill with a mere 152 projects.

The same stuffing pattern is seen in other legislation like the recently enacted energy bill that is "chock-full of corporate subsidies, targeted tax breaks, and other special interest handouts," according to Citizens Against Government Waste. Since 2003, the overall earmarks total has zoomed from 8,341 to nearly 14,000, the group recently told The Washington Post.

As for limiting government, the federal establishment is as complicated, duplicative and inefficient as ever, despite more than a decade of GOP majorities in Congress and several years of GOP control of both the White House and Congress....

Most worrisome about this GOP addiction to pork is that it undermines the party's credibility as the entitlements crisis caused by the retirement of the Baby Boomers draws ever closer.

Medicare has nearly $30 trillion in unfounded mandates. Social Security faces annual deficits in excess of $100 billion beginning sometime around 2018. Add government employee pension obligations and those assumed from Fortune 500 corporations by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Commission and there will be no alternative to steeply higher taxes and major benefit cuts. Social, economic and financial chaos will follow, just as Reagan predicted in 1981.

Reagan expressed the GOP's soul when he said "it is my intention to curb the size and influence of the federal establishment and to demand recognition of the distinction between the powers granted to the federal government and those reserved to the states or to the people." Progress was slow and sometimes reversed, but Reagan kept up the pressure.

Reagan's GOP heirs are wasting his legacy.

This behavior by President Bush and the entire GOP Congress is scandalous. It is irresponsible and has adverse long-term consequences. It represents a complete breakdown in leadership.

These problems are not new to Anchor Rising. Here are some past postings on the general topic:

Favors for Everyone Except the Taxpaying Masses
Corporate Welfare Queens: Destructive Parasites Which Deserve to Die
The Highway Bill: "Egregious and Remarkable"
The Highway Bill: Another Example of Unacceptable Government Spending
Pigs at the Public Trough
More on the Misguided Incentives in the Public Sector
Pigs at the Public Trough, Revisited

A brief look at why these problems develop in the first place can be found in a posting entitled Misguided Incentives Drive Public Sector Taxation.

A more comprehensive look at why these problems develop in the first place can be found in a posting entitled A Call to Action: Responding to Government Being Neither Well-Meaning Nor Focused on the Public Interest.

Cindy Sheehan

Mac has already written a previous posting about Cindy Sheehan entitled What Cindy Sheehan's New Pals Really Think About Her Army Son.

As painful as it is to provide the woman with one iota more of publicity, here are some informative and recent writings about her:

Patrick Frey: Peacenik paper fawns over antiwar mom
Power Line: Today's Must Read Piece
Mark Steyn: 'Peace Mom's' marriage a metaphor for Dems
Camped out in Crawford: Bush shown kissing Cindy in family pix
Reflections on Camp Sheehan
Sheehan plays 'Hardball' with Matthews: Leader of protest outside of Bush's Crawford ranch explains her stance
Cindy Unleashed: "The Biggest Terrorist in the World is George W. Bush"

While I can only imagine the pain that comes from losing a child, Cindy Sheehan is nothing more than a left-wing crazy.

[Thanks to Greg Wallace over at What Attitude Problem? for leads to two of these articles.]

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Here are more articles:

Cathy Young: The Cindy Sheehan you don't know
American Digest: The Absolute Moral Degeneracy of Cindy Sheehan
JunkYardBlog: Summer of Sheehan: Another Day, Another Outrageous Quote
Byron York: Cindy Sheehan’s Radical Strategist
Little Green Footballs: How Phony Can They Get?
George Will: The Left's Folly
John Leo: Looking the Other Way

East Greenwich Contract Settlement: Reflecting on the Many Lessons Learned

The formal labor dispute between the residents of East Greenwich and the NEA teachers' union is now over. However, the dispute showed the true colors of the union and many teachers. With the veneer stripped off, residents have learned many valuable lessons.

First and foremost, we learned – by their practice of work-to-rule – the union and numerous teachers were willing to use our children as pawns in an attempt to avoid a health insurance co-payment. They even had the audacity to say publicly that work-to-rule was not hurting our children.

Second, the union demanded to be made whole financially via full retroactive pay for last year even though our children’s educational experience could not be made whole – due to their work-to-rule actions.

Third, they confirmed how teachers’ union contracts are the antithesis of good teaching practices when they stressed that work-to-rule was a contractual right – while at the same time protesting that they wanted us to treat them like professional workers. They stated publicly that before-school and after-school assistance was not part of their job description. They dared us to take them to court if we believed they were not working the legally proper hours.

Fourth, they insulted residents by claiming that a majority of us could afford to hire tutors for our children but have been receiving these services free from public school teachers for years. Teachers also claimed that they – not parents – were responsible for our town’s favorable test scores.

Fifth, they showed how they live in a make-believe world when they said that no one in the private sector works overtime without getting paid and, if they’re off the clock at 5 p.m., you can bet they’re out the door at 5. They also claimed more than 50% of residents earn at least $500,000.

Sixth, we also learned they would make verifiably misleading comments to get what they want, including: (i) Taxes in East Greenwich aren’t that high compared to other communities; (ii) Insurance co-payments would result in pay cuts to teachers; and, (iii) East Greenwich pays lower than other districts.

These are not honorable people. It is clear now that these union negotiations are nothing less than one big racket, rigged to yield financial gain to the union. They certainly are not for the benefit of our children or for excellence in education.

In this context, we owe a debt of gratitude to the School Committee for a job well done. They achieved some contract terms achieved by no other school district.

1. Health insurance co-payment: Job steps 4-10, which covers nearly all teachers, will pay 6% this year, 10% next year. Job steps 1-3 will pay 4% this year, 5% next year. Most importantly, unlike other recent contracts, this is the first one in the state with a double-digit co-pay that doesn’t have either a dollar cap or offsetting stipend that nullifies the meaning of the percentage.

2. Health insurance buyback: Previously a variable 50% of the total premium (which was estimated to be $7,300 this year) is now fixed at $5,000 for each of the next two years.

3. Retroactive pay for last year: 2.5%, instead of the 3.5% requested by the union. I still think any retroactive pay is reprehensible but welcome to union negotiations in this state.

4. Salary step increases: 3.6% this year, 3.8% next year. This will still yield 9-13% annual salary increases for job steps 1-9, an unfortunate and hidden practice buried in all contracts around the state.

5. No longevity bonuses.

6. No "lane increases" above the step increases for those with more than a bachelor’s degree.

7. No increases to "Appendix B" stipends - for activities such as coaching.

Unfortunately, work-to-rule and other management rights issues are specified in RI General Law, which means it is impossible to change these rules at the local level.

Thanks again to the School Committee. They delivered what is probably as good a deal as can be negotiated in a state where the balance of power is wired in the favor of unions, not educational excellence or fiscal responsibility.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON EDUCATIONAL ISSUES:

EAST GREENWICH NEA TEACHERS' UNION CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS
In a nutshell, here was what I thought the negotiating position of the East Greenwich School Committee should have been on some of the key financial terms of the contract.

Other postings include:
Background Information on the East Greenwich NEA Labor Dispute
The NEA's Disinformation Campaign
East Greenwich Salary & Benefits Data
More Bad Faith Behavior by the NEA
The Debate About Retroactive Pay
Would You Hurt Our Children Just To Win Better Contract Terms?
The Question Remains Open & Unanswered: Are We/They Doing Right By Our Children?
Will The East Greenwich Teachers' Union Stop Their Attempts to Legally Extort Residents?
You Have To Read This Posting To Believe It! The Delusional World of the NEA Teachers' Union
So What Else is New? Teachers' Union Continues Non-Productive Behaviors in East Greenwich Labor Talks
"Bargaining Rights are Civil Rights"
The NEA-Rhode Island's Pathetic Attempts to Manipulate East Greenwich Residents
What's Wrong With This Picture: 800 Applicants for 14 Teaching Jobs & the NEA Says There is a Problem

OTHER RHODE ISLAND PUBLIC EDUCATION/UNION ISSUES
In addition to financial issues, management rights are the other big teachers' union contract issue. "Work-to-rule" or "contract compliance" only can become an issue because of how management rights are defined in union contracts. The best reading on this subject is the recent report by The Education Partnership. It is must reading.

Other editorials and postings include:
ProJo editorial: Derailing the R.I. gravy train
ProJo editorial: RI public unions work to reduce your family's quality of life
ProJo editorial: Breaking the taxpayer: How R.I. teachers get 12% pay hikes
Selfish Focus of Teachers Unions: Everything But What Is Good For Our Kids
Tom Coyne - RI Schools: Big Bucks Have Not Brought Good Results
The NEA: There They Go, Again!
A Response: Why Teachers' Unions (Not Teachers!) Are Bad For Education
"A Girl From The Projects" Gets an Opportunity to Live the American Dream
Doing Right By Our Children in Public Education Requires Thinking Outside The Box
Debating Rhode Island Public Education Issues
The Cocoon in which Entitled State Employees Live
Are Teachers Fairly Compensated?
Warwick Teachers' Union Throws Public Tantrum
Blocking More Charter Schools Means Hurting Our Children
RI Educational Establishment: Your Days of No Vigorous Public Oversight & No Accountability Are Ending
Two Local Examples Reinforce Why Today's Public Education System Will Never Achieve Excellence

BROADER PUBLIC EDUCATION ISSUES
American education is failing to keep up with other countries around the world. This has long-term consequences for our country's economic strength and our standard of living.

The Deep Performance Problems with American Public Education
Freedom, Hard Work & Quality Education: Making The American Dream Possible For ALL Americans
Parents or Government/Unions: Who Should Control Our Children's Educational Decisions?
Now Here is a Good Idea
Milton Friedman on School Choice
Issuing a Call for a Higher Quality Public Debate About Education
Is Merit Pay for Teachers a 'Crazy Idea'?
Reporting False Performance Data Under No Child Left Behind: Why Are We Surprised At Dishonest Behavior By The Educational Bureaucracy?
Lack of Merit Pay Reduces the Quality of Teachers & Our Schools
Will We Measure Educational Performance by Inputs or Outputs?
Paycheck Protection: Allowing You to Keep Your Own Hard-Earned Monies
"Shut Up & Teach"

Cultural Misunderstanding?

The final line in this story about the new Iraqi constitution caught my eye...

"I expect that the constitution would be finished before Monday," Sunni negotiator Saleh al-Mutlaq said. "Negotiations are still under way and everybody is determined to finish it before the deadline."

He said American and British officials were pressing the Sunnis to compromise on the issues of federalism and other topics. "Americans are more concerned about the sacred deadlines rather than the contents of the constitution," Mutlaq said

We Westerners are known for being more uptight about times and deadlines (the nice way we say this about ourselves is that "we place high value on punctuality") than many other cultures of the world. The Arab world, at least anecdotally, is less inclined towards punctuality. Here's Berlitz on the topic...

Punctuality is not considered a virtue in the Arab world.

You'll find similar sentiments in almost any guide for doing business with the Arab world.

The Iraqis drafting their new constitution may not really understand, deep in their hearts, how important hitting exact deadlines is to the minds of Americans and Europeans. Let's hope a cultural difference like this doesn't end up unnecessarily derailing the Iraqi democratization process.

Scaling the Wall?

This leaves me with nothing to say, except to hope that it's a fluke, not an indication of trends:

STATE SEN. Marian Walsh (D.-Dedham) has filed legislation requiring churches in Massachusetts to submit annual reports to the state detailing their collections, expenditures, funds on hand, investments, real-estate holdings, etc.

The proposed law would apply to all religions, and their churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, tents or storefronts. But the clear impetus for the bill was two cataclysmic events in the Roman Catholic Church: the long-running sexual-abuse scandal and the closure of many venerable parishes in the Boston Archdiocese.

Democratization Skepticism on the Right I

Conservative arguments against a foreign policy of promoting democracy are becoming more common. Here's the start of one from Lawrence Auster in The American Thinker...

Now that the democratization of Iraq has led to a constitution based on the totalitarian sharia law, perhaps President Bush and his advisors can better understand the truth enunciated by Norman Davies in his 1996 book, Europe, A History:

Hitler's democratic triumph exposed the true nature of democracy. Democracy has few values of its own: it is as good, or bad, as the principles of the people who operate it. In the hands of liberal and tolerant people, it will produce a liberal and tolerant government; in the hands of cannibals, a government of cannibals. In Germany of 1933-4 it produced a Nazi government because the prevailing culture of Germany�s voters did not give priority to the exclusion of gangsters.

Twenty years ago, or even ten years ago when Davies' book was published, a significant number of thinking Americans would have granted the evident validity of these observations. A democratic government, in the sense of a government chosen by popular election and therefore reflecting the concerns and values of a particular people, will also naturally reflect the moral and cultural character of that people.

The underlying premise here is that "the prevailing culture" of Germany led to the rise of Nazism in the 1930s. But, by the 1950s, Germany was well on its way to becoming a social democracy. Unless Auster is arguing that Germany is a prime candidate to revert to totalitarianism now, doesn't the Auster/Davies example lead to the conclusion that an occupying power can substantially liberalize the underlying culture of another country in just a generation or two?

The Real Lesson of the Ohio Election?

Dean Barnett (another conservative New Englander) has an excellent analysis in the Weekly Standard of the Democratic side of the recent Ohio special Congressional election, where a veteran Republican edged out a Democratic newcomer in a solidly Republican district. However, I think the real lesson for Republicans is contained in this paragraph from Barnett...

The Republicans nominated a veteran state senator, Jean Schmidt, who according to both friend and foe was a lackluster politician who subsequently ran a lackluster campaign. What's more, Schmidt was saddled with the baggage of being a staunch supporter of Ohio's wildly unpopular governor, Robert Taft, whose sole unique political talent seems to be an ability to alienate his state's voters...

Is Jean Schmidt the exception, or the rule? Maybe I'm over-generalizing from a few cases, but this seems to be part of a larger Republican problem. In Rhode Island's last gubernatorial election, had the candidate of the party establishment won the primary, he would have almost certainly lost in the general election. Fortunately, he was so bad (as a candidate), he lost a primary challenge to Don Carcieri, who went on to beat the Democratic challenger.

Combine enough of these cases, and you start to develop a picture of a party that looks at nominations as a way to reward service, not as a way to win elections. It points to a top-down party, interested in building a disciplined machine for winning at the national level, but less concerned with winning locally. Eventually, this organizational philosophy drains the party of the grass-roots support need edfor long-term success.

Teaching the Boundaries of Science

My latest column, "Life in an Unfinished World," takes up the evolution v. intelligent design dispute. The religious-like fervor of those who oppose intelligent design raises the question of whether they think any aspects of society rightly impinge on science. Contrary to frequent insistence that intelligent design be taught — if at all — in religion or philosophy classes, no more important lesson can be taught to American schoolchildren than that science has culturally and methodologically defined boundaries.

Froma Harrop tells you what Dahlia Lithwick won't

Let's give credit to Froma Harrop, which we don't often do at Anchor Rising. Harrop tells you what Dahlia Lithwick won't. Here's Lithwick, in Slate...

The reason social conservatives seek to have no exception to New Hampshire's parental notification statute for situations in which there is a risk to the health of the mother is straightforward: They don't trust doctors. This was the fight at the heart of the partial-birth abortion dispute in the 2000 case of Stenberg v. Carhart, decided by a familiar 5-4 margin. The fear in both contexts is that a health exception in the hands of sympathetic physicians puts no real meaningful limit on abortion

Is it really as simple as the fact that those mean, retrograde social conservatives don't trust doctors and don't care about the health of mothers? Or is there something else in play here? The answer is in Harrop's August 14 Projo column...

Most of us agree that these abortions [to protect the health of the mother] should be done only under extraordinary circumstances. So if by "health" we mean the psychic well-being of someone who decided late in the game that she didn't want a baby, then no, the pregnancy must go to full term. But if something has gone terribly wrong, and the woman would be physically ravaged by continuing a pregnancy, then we must have a different kind of debate.

Harrop is explaining that the courts, at present, define health exceptions to abortion very broadly, drawing no distinction between "mental health" and "physical health". Do social conservatives not trust doctors, or do social conservatives not trust the courts to define reasonable standards of mental health? (Remember Amy Richards, who opted for "pregnancy reduction" becasue she was traumatized by the thought that having triplets would force her to shop at Costco? Would this have qualified under a "mental health" exception?) If Lithwick wanted to facilitate an honest discussion on this issue, she would have mentioned this detail.

Shahid�s Strawman No. 3

Sunday's Projo ran a detailed, 10-point essay accusing "the right wing" (abbreviated in the article as RW) of hypocrisy. My initial impression is that not a single one of the ten points has any serious merit to it.
The Senescent Man has some thoughts on point #2.
RightRI takes on point #7.
Here are my thoughts on point #8.

And here's what I think of one of the ugliest points, point #3...

For decades, one rock in the RW shoe has been its opponents' name calling; racist, bigot and homophobe are crutches that liberals use to dismiss RW arguments as emotion-based. This drives the RW people nuts, because they think themselves the logical, sensible end of the spectrum. Yet they themselves keep the charge of anti-Semitism as the first arrow in their quiver against any opposition to Israeli policy. Other opponents are simply Bush haters or America haters.

In mid-2002, after Afghanistan but before Iraq, the RW was unhappy that Colin Powell was willing to meet with Yassir Arafat before Arafat had committed to move against terrorism. To the best of my knowledge, this policy difference did not lead anyone to call Colin Powell an anti-semite. Howard Dean created a minor furor during the 2004 Presidential campaign when he said that it was not America's place to take sides in the Israel-Palestine conflict. No one in the RW accused Dean of equivocating because of anti-semitism. Certain Congresspeople, like Cynthia McKinney or Jim Moran have been accused of anti-semitism, because of specific things they or their supporters said. But other Congresspeople who have similar voting records to Mckinney and Moran according to the U.S Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, like Nick Rahall, John Dingell, Jim McDermott, or Barbara Lee, have not been accused of anti-semitism because of positions they take.

The idea that anti-Semitism "is the first arrow in their quiver against any opposition to Israeli policy" shows either blatant ignorance or callous disregard for the truth.

Shahid’s Strawman No. 8

Sunday’s Projo ran a detailed, 10-point essay accusing “the right wing” (abbreviated in the article as RW) of hypocrisy. My initial impression is that not a single one of the ten points has any serious merit to it. I’ll start with point #8.

In Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo, the Clinton administration called our troop involvement morally imperative. RW leaders opposed all three involvements as devoid of "vital national interest." Now we have the embarrassing spectacle of months passing with our troops able to locate every gold bar in Iraq but no weapons that were supposedly bursting from every closet. Now the moral justification is enough.

First, notable “RW Leaders” did support intervention in Yugoslavia. William Kristol (aka the leader of the neoconservative cabal) supported intervention as vital to the national interest. John McCain and Chuck Hagel introduced a bill into Congress allowing the President wide latitude to use ground troops is Kosovo. Jesse Helms, then chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee (and you can’t get any more RW than Jesse Helms without falling into Pat Buchanan territory) thought that the United States had enough of a national interest in Yugoslavia to sponsor legislation authorizing 100 million dollars in US aid aimed at removing Slobodan Milosevic from power and establishing a democratic regime in his place.

Second, no RWer that I know of has advanced a purely “moral” justification, i.e. a justification devoid of national interest, for intervention in Iraq. President Bush has placed Iraq into a larger strategic framework: topple the most odious regime in a part of the world where democracy is seriously lacking, and it might help to liberalize the entire region. A more liberal Middle East is less likely to serve as an incubator of trans-national instability. Because you do not agree with the strategy does not mean that it does not exist. President Clinton had a hard time gaining support for his interventions because they were not part of any analogous strategic framework.

One down, nine to go…

Bob Kerr, Lies, and Indirection

If Bob Kerr wants to call President Bush a liar, he shouldn’t hide behind a grieving mother to do so. Does Kerr himself think that President Bush is a liar? He doesn’t quite make it that far, he only gets to a point where he can tell us…

It's as if the truth has laid siege to the vacation White House.

He lets someone else make the charge of lying for him…

He could have used his standard bromides -- "noble cause," "the right of Iraqis to live in freedom." And [Cindy] Sheehan could have disagreed with him, told him she considers the reasons for the war to be lies.

Does Kerr believe that it is a lie that Iraqis have a right to live in freedom. Or does Cindy Sheehan believe that it is a lie that Iraqis have a right to live in freedom? Or do Kerr and/or Sheehan believe it is a lie that President Bush believes that Iraqis have a right to live in freedom? It’s hard to tell, given the indirection that Kerr expresses himself with. Whatever the case, if Bob Kerr believes that the United States best protects itself by ignoring governments that crush the freedom and the lives of their people, which seems to be the center of the lie he is talking about, he should come out and say so in his own name.

What Cindy Sheehan's New Pals Really Think About Her Army Son

As anyone who watches TV knows, Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq, has camped out in Crawford, Texas, demanding that the president meet with her. Of course, as we also know, the president did meet with her and her first account of the meeting indicated she was very favorably impressed with the demeanor of the president. For whatever, reason, she has changed her tune.

A coalition of anti-war groups has latched on to Mrs. Sheehan, calling her the “Rosa parks of the anti-war movement.” She is, of course, the public face the anti-war types need. But she might be interested in what her new pals really think about her son.

In response to my NRO piece yesterday calling into question the utility of much of the criticism of the war, I received a very illuminating e-mail, which I posted on The Corner.

Dear Mr. Owens;

You write, "It is hard to conduct military operations when a chorus of
eunuchs is describing every action we take as a violation of everything that
America stands for, a quagmire in which we are doomed to failure, and a
waste of American lives."

But Mr. Owens, I believe that those three beliefs are true. On what
grounds can I be barred from speaking them in public? Because speaking them
will undermine American goals in Iraq? Bless you, sir, that's what I want
to do in the first place. I am confident that U.S. forces will be driven
from Iraq, and for that reason I am rather enjoying the war.

But doesn't hoping that American forces are driven from Iraq necessarily
mean hoping that Americans soldiers will be killed there? Yes it does.
Your soldiers are just a bunch of poor, dumb suckers that have been swindled
out of their right to choose between good and evil. Quite a few of them are
or will be swindled out of their eyes, legs, arms and lives. I didn't
swindle them. President Bush did. If you're going to blame me for cheering
their misery, what must you do to President Bush, whose policies are the
cause of that misery?

Yours sincerely,
(Name withheld)

If Mrs. Sheehan wants to be used to advance the interests of the antiwar left, that is her prerogative. But she might want to peruse the blogs that constitute the fever swamps of the left. There she will find that this is not an isolated case, but that her new pals feel nothing but contempt for her son—that indeed they do believe he was a “poor, dumb sucker.”

They're not Anti-War, They're just on the Other Side

Mac has recently published a couple of columns in the New York Post and National Review on media coverage and criticism of the war in Iraq. At The Corner, he has also posted a response from someone who is, in the words of Glenn Reynolds, not anti-war, but just on the other side.

Anti-Roberts ad is False...

...but don't take my word for it. Factcheck.org, run by the Anneberg School at the University of Pennsylvania, says the anti-Roberts ad being run on Rhode Island TV is false. Here is their exact wording...

An abortion-rights group is running an attack ad accusing Supreme Court nominee John Roberts of filing legal papers “supporting . . . a convicted clinic bomber” and of having an ideology that “leads him to excuse violence against other Americans” It shows images of a bombed clinic in Birmingham , Alabama .

The ad is false.

Here is one other little gem from their analysis.

The images used in the ad are especially misleading. The pictures are of a clinic bombing that happened nearly seven years after Roberts signed the legal brief in question.

The fact that Roberts' opponents are already resorting to making stuff up means they don't actually have anything to hold against him.

A Question to the Know-Nothings

One more thought on the Know-Nothing proposal to bar Catholics, by law, from hearing certain court cases. How, precisely, will a Catholic be identified for the purposes of this law?

At confirmation, will nominees be required to document their religious affiliation? And suppose a nominee refuses, citing some silly grounds like the 1st Amendment, or the Article VI ban on religious tests. Will the Congress then take it upon themselves to declare that the nominee belongs to a certain religion? Or will they just subpeona the nominee’s church, demanding to know if he or she is a member in good standing?

Or maybe, to be fair, we can just require all judges – heck, all Federal employees – to register their religion with the government.

Well, Massachusetts was the Center of the Know-Nothing Movement

In yesterday’s Boston Globe, modern day Know-Nothing Christopher D. Morris called for the Senate Judiciary Committee to draft “legislation calling for the automatic recusal of Catholic judges from cases citing Roe v. Wade as a precedent.” Apparently he is unfamiliar with Article VI of the U.S. Constitution which bans religious tests for holding public office.

But Morris goes beyond seeking a religious test. He gives his real game away with this sentence…

Asking the bishops to testify would be healthy. If they rescinded the threats made against Kerry, then Roberts would feel free to make his decision without the appearance of a conflict of interest…

In other words, Morris wants to use the power of government to coerce religious leaders into changing how they lead their followers! Is this the 21st century meaning of "separation of church and state"?

Maybe the Candidates have a Position on UN Reform

Still waiting for Senator Chafee's office to answer my inquiries about UN reform. In the meantime, I sent the following inquiry to the official campaign e-mail addresses of the three Democratic candidates campaiging for US Senate (in alphabetical order by last name), Matt Brown, Carl Sheeler, and Sheldon Whitehouse.

The AnchorRising weblog would like to know Candidate {name}'s position on the following issue…

There are currently two United Nations reform bills before the United States Senate: S1394, which authorizes the withholding of dues if specific reform criteria are not met; and S1383, which leaves any withholding of dues related to failure to reform to the discretion of the President. Does the candidate support either of these reform proposals?

More detailed information about the UN reform proposals is available here.

Slanted A-Bomb History

Saturday’s Projo article on Atomic Bomb revisionism contains at least one highly, highly disingenuous point.

The well-known hawk, Gen. Curtis LeMay, publicly declared shortly after the bombings that the war would have been over in two weeks, and that the atomic bomb had nothing to do with bringing about Japan's surrender.

If General LeMay thought the war could have been ended in two weeks, it was because he thought that was how long it would take to burn the country to the ground with napalm instead of the new atomic technology. This is from Victor Davis Hanson’s much more informative article at National Review Online.

In some sense, Hiroshima and Nagasaki not only helped to cut short the week-long Soviet invasion of Japanese-held Manchuria (80,000 Japanese soldiers killed, over 8,000 Russian dead), but an even more ambitious incendiary campaign planned by Gen. Curtis LeMay. With the far shorter missions possible from planned new bases in Okinawa and his fleet vastly augmented by more B-29s and the transference from Europe of thousands of idle B-17s and B-24, the ‘mad bomber’ LeMay envisioned burning down the entire urban and industrial landscape of Japan. His opposition to Hiroshima was more likely on grounds that his own fleet of bombers could have achieved the same result in a few more weeks anyway.

Is there any reason to believe that the rest of the facts from the Projo op-ed have been any less slanted?

U.S. Constitution: "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust"

In an editorial entitled Judging While Catholic: Do journalists understand that the Constitution prohibits religious tests for officeholders?, Manual Miranda provides all of us with a tutorial on religious tests and the U.S. Constitution:

John Roberts will be the fourth Roman Catholic on the current Supreme Court, but only the 10th Catholic among the 109 justices who've served in the high court's 215-year history. A few senators and a good many journalists have made much of it.

Earlier this week, in a span of minutes, three journalists asked me to respond to liberals, like Sen. Richard Durbin (D., Ill.), raising Judge Roberts's religion as a confirmation issue...Minutes before penning this column, a fourth prominent political reporter startled me further by asking: "What religion test clause? Where does that appear?"

Well, here, everyone jot this down. "The line" appears in Article VI of the U.S. Constitution: "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

Much bigger than the obvious problem of overreaching Democratic senators (because it is obvious) is that Americans are depending on journalists to catalyze the most important public debate outside an election: the confirmation of a Supreme Court justice...The preface to one [Pew Research Center] 2004 report notes:

Journalists at national and local news organizations are notably different from the general public in their ideology and attitudes toward political and social issues...news people, especially national journalists are more liberal, and far less conservative, than the general public.

Most Americans know this by now. Some may know the result of another Pew survey that found most journalists were overwhelmingly irreligious. What we do not know is how many journalists read, much less understand the Constitution...Here are two sightings from this week alone.

In Monday's Boston Globe, columnist Cathy Young, also a contributing editor of the libertarian Reason magazine, concludes: "A candidate's or nominee's ideology should be fair game whether it's religious or secular in nature, whether it's rooted in conservative Catholicism or liberal feminism."

More interesting is how Ms. Young gets to this conclusion. While applauding John F. Kennedy's milestone election as the first Catholic president, Ms. Young recites Article VI, but she conflates the religious test clause with the provision that officeholders "shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution." She interprets this to mean that "an officeholder could not be required to take an oath or perform a religious ritual affirming his allegiance to a particular religion or denomination, or even a general belief in God."

Ms. Young thinks it's about cookie-cutter discrimination, and not about protecting actual religious beliefs. In fact, the two clauses are quite separate in their intent. Their distinct origin is itself telling. At the Constitutional Convention most proponents of the Oath Clause sought to ensure the public servants were "sincere friends to religion," but greater forces than that had been lobbying to ensure that there would be no "religious test" for public office...

Requiring an oath or affirmation in taking public office was the Framers' nod to God, the requirement that no particular set of religious beliefs be required of office holders was their nod to their painful experience with the religious intolerance of England.

In Wednesday's Washington Post ("Why It's Right to Ask About Roberts's Faith"), columnist E.J. Dionne asks: "Is it wrong to question Judge John Roberts on how his Catholic faith might affect his decisions as a Supreme Court justice? Or is it wrong not to? . . . Why is it wrong to ask him to share his reflections with the public?" It would be helpful, Mr. Dionne concludes, "if Roberts gave an account of how (and whether) his religious convictions would affect his decisions as a justice."

Mr. Dionne's error is found is his own words: "Yes, any inquiry related to a nominee's religion risks being seen as a form of bigotry, and of course there should be no 'religious tests.' " Indeed. And that is the problem, again.

Journalists believe that the religious test clause guards against simple discrimination against Catholics or Jews or any other particular denominations. It does not. It prohibits a probe of what the potential officeholder believes derived of his religious convictions. It is not about what he lists on a questionnaire under religion, as if it were like race or sex. That is why the liberal press has mocked the concern raised by conservatives that the abortion litmus test and other lines of inquiry are a constitutionally prohibited religious test.

When England passed its two Test Acts, they did not prohibit Catholics from holding public office. Rather, the "test" sought to exclude anyone from holding public office who believed that the bread and wine in the ritual of the Eucharist turned into the body and blood of Jesus Christ, a fundamental tenet of Catholic belief.

Fortunately, Mr. Durbin and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) have shied away from that line of inquiry, since their clients haven't figured out how to profit from it...

The U.S. Constitution is quite clear that there shall be no religious test. Of course, since left-wing Senators Schumer and Durbin don't believe in being guided by the original intent underlying the U.S. Constitution, none of us should find it surprising that they are willing to twist the religious test issue to meet their political objectives.

Several of the other postings listed below elaborate further on Senator Schumer's crass methods, methods driven by raw power objectives instead of principles that have any connection to the Founders' beliefs embodied in our Constitution.

Here are some previous postings on the Supreme Court nomination process, with an emphasis on the proper role of the judiciary:

Judicial Activism: Commandeering the Public Debate & Violating the Founding Principles of America
"The Supreme Court Has Converted Itself From a Legal Institution to a Political One"
Are You an Originalist?
How Original Intent Does Not Equal Conservative Judicial Activism
Rediscovering Proper Judicial Reasoning
Playing the Religious Bigotry Card, Again
How the Left Blurs the Distinction Between Judging & Politicking
Senator Schumer's Double Standard
Nothing But a Fishing Expedition
"Restoration of Judicial Restraint Assists the Restoration of Good Will, Because Democratic Governance Gives Everyone Their Say"
The Ginsburg Precedent
Orrin Hatch: Don't Overstate "Advise and Consent"
Senator Santorum: Judicial Activism is Destroying Traditional Morality
Relinking Constitutional Law & Jurisprudence to the Constitution
What is the Federalist Society?
The Kelo Decision: When Private Property Rights are Eroded, Our Freedom is Diminished

Here are two examples of how the Left views the same issues:

Viewing the Supreme Court Nomination Battle From the Far Left
"We Are Going To Go To War Over This"

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Here are other postings on this site about the related issue of the judicial filibuster debate:

The Filibuster...Continued
The Injustice of Smearing A Fellow American For Political Gain
The Senate Judicial Filibuster: Power Politics & Religious Bigotry
Mac Owen's open letter to Senator Chaffee
Senator Mitch McConnell on the Judicial Filibuster
The Foolish Fourteen: An editorial by the former Dean of BU's Law School
A Power Line overview of the filibuster debate
Revisiting the Case for Janice Rogers Brown

To Stop Religious Terrorism, Permit Religious Politics

For my column — which will now be appearing every other Wednesday — I pondered the formation of London's homegrown Muslim terrorists: "Exploding Across Arm's-Length Tolerance." The bottom line is that the common thread that runs through the astute explanations — the root cause, if you will — is disengagement. And pushing religion, and the religious, away from politics and government will only exacerbate the problem.

Favors for Everyone Except the Taxpaying Masses

An editorial entitled Meet the New Special-Interest U.S. Congress by George Melloan continues an ongoing discussion about the perverse incentives that drive public sector behaviors:

...Taxpayers can rest easier now that the denizens of Capitol Hill have gone home for their August holiday. But those worthies have left behind a trail littered with the favors they've done for their special friends at the expense of the taxpaying masses...

The McCain-Feingold act, the current embodiment of years of campaign finance "reforms," was peddled as a law that would "take money out of politics." Oh, sure. Campaign spending set a record last fall, much of it provided indirectly from shadowy sources rather than up front and in public. Americans in some distant past had a largely unrestricted right to support candidates with their contributions, but a Congress uncomfortable with free choice chose to limit that power.

A case can be made that we are seeing the result of this limitation in the performance of the current Congress, which seems to have less regard than its predecessors for the broad public interest...

This near fiasco [the Cafta vote] for U.S. trade policy raises a question: How did lobbyists for a few business interests with little overall economic importance [See Corporate Welfare Queens: Destructive Parasites Which Deserve to Die] almost overwhelm the broad interests of the U.S. and its trading partners? One possible answer is that narrow interests can wield such power because...campaign-finance restrictions have so narrowed the financial support base for lawmakers that they have become more beholden to lobbies with the cash and know-how to defeat anyone who doesn't toe the line...

Before recess, the House also rushed to approve two big spending bills covering who knows what. In both the highway [see previous posting here] and energy bills the main concern was not the price tag or whether the money would be spent efficiently. It was to ensure that every member got a fair share for his state or district...

Apologists for all this profligacy argue that at least it "creates jobs." But none of those jobs comes with any cost-benefit test of the type that a private venture would have to pass to get funding. Thus there is no measure of whether the money spent adds or subtracts from human well-being.

There is very little concern for anything other than dividing up the tax-and-borrowing revenues so that every member, along with his coterie of supporters, gets a share...

Congress knows it has a spending problem, just as alcoholics are aware that they have a drinking problem. The late Democratic Senator Pat Moynihan once said to Journal editors, "It doesn't do any good for you to yell at us -- we just can't help it."

He may have been right. Congress has made various stabs at setting up a "congressional budget process" that would reconcile the various spending bills and keep them within some agreed-upon total. But somehow the machinery just never seems to work. It keeps getting overwhelmed by the pressures of political logrolling...

A broader argument is that money holds the republic together. By sharing it out, the federal government buys the loyalty of a broad variety of constituencies, thereby insuring national unity. In politics, "fairness" is a very big word, even if it is only applied to those who receive federal largesse and seldom to those taxpayers who cough it up.

If "fairness" is the guiding principle, perhaps it should apply to the equal treatment under the law of everyone who wants to express his constitutional right to free expression by supporting, financially, the candidate of his choice. The result might be that members of Congress would become less beholden to special interests and more concerned with the common good...

It is worth repeating a paragraph from an earlier posting:

A more complete discussion of the perverse incentives that exist within the public sector are discussed in the posting entitled A Call to Action: Responding to Government Being Neither Well-Meaning Nor Focused on the Public Interest, where numerous links provide the opportunity to dive more deeply into both the root causes and the symptoms of an irresponsible, out-of-control public sector.

Creating a False Distinction Between Human Rights & Property Rights

Walter Williams latest editorial entitled Human rights vs. property rights offers an insightful look into the twisted views of some Leftists:

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's recent 5-4 ruling in Kelo v. New London, statements have been made about property rights that are demonstrative of the paucity of understanding among some within the legal profession. Carolyn Lochhead's July 1st San Francisco Chronicle article, "Foes Unite in Defense of Property," reports on the coalition building in Congress to deny federal funds to cities that use laws of eminent domain to take private property for the benefit of another private party.

But it's the article's report on a statement made by a representative of People for the American Way...that I'd like to address. According to Ms. Lochhead's article, "Elliot Mincberg, the group's legal director, said the case [Kelo v. New London] had been brought by the Institute for Justice as part of an effort by conservatives to elevate property rights to the same level of civil rights such as freedom of speech and religion, in effect taking the nation back to the pre-New Deal days when the courts ruled child labor laws unconstitutional." To posit a distinction between civil or human rights on the one hand and property rights on the other reflects little understanding...

My computer is my property. Does it have any rights -- like the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Are there any constitutional guarantees held by my computer?...to think of property as possessing rights is unadulterated nonsense.

...Property rights are human rights to use economic goods and services. Private property rights contain your right to use, transfer, trade and exclude others from use of property deemed yours. The supposition that there's a conflict or difference between human rights to use property and civil rights is bogus and misguided...

That it's bogus to make a distinction between human, civil and property rights can be seen in another way. In a free society, each person is his own private property; I own myself and you own yourself. That's why it's immoral to rape or murder. It violates a person's property rights. The fact of self-ownership also helps explain why theft is immoral. In order for self-ownership to be meaningful, a person must have ownership rights to what he produces or earns...if someone steals my computer, he's violated my ownership rights to my computer, which I earned through my labor, and therefore my human or civil rights to keep what I produce.

Creating false distinctions between human rights and property rights plays into the hands of Democrat and Republican party socialists who seek to control our lives. If we buy into the notion that somehow property rights are less important, or are in conflict with, human or civil rights, we give the socialists a freer hand to attack our property.

As President John Adams (1797-1801) put it, "Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty." Adding, "The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence."

An indepth look at the Kelo decision can be found in a posting entitled The Kelo Decision: When Private Property Rights are Eroded, Our Freedom is Diminished.

Senator Reed's Position on UN Reform

Well, sort of....

Senator Reed’s deputy press secretary left a message in response to my call on UN reform this morning. Senator Reed’s respectable, though not very informative, position is to refrain from commenting until a specific UN reform proposal comes out of the foreign relations committee.

I had also asked if the events of the Bolton nomination would effect the Senator’s willingness to trust the President with broad powers to withhold UN dues. The Senator’s spokesman did not comment on this part of my question. (Nothing in this post should be construed as implying that the Senator’s staff is being less than 100% forthcoming in providing the Senator’s position. I am just pointing out that a position does not seem to exist yet.)

The details of the UN reform proposals can be found here. In the Senate, the Hyde-Pence bill has been designated S1394.

The Highway Bill: "Egregious and Remarkable"

An article entitled Highway Bill Full of Special Projects tells another government spending horror story:

When President Eisenhower proposed the first national highway bill, there were two projects singled out for funding. The latest version has, by one estimate, 6,371 of these special projects, a record that some say politicians should be ashamed of.

The projects in the six-year, $286.4 billion highway and mass transit bill passed by Congress last week range from $200,000 for a deer avoidance system in Weedsport, N.Y., to $330 million for a highway in Bakersfield, Calif.

For the beneficiaries -- almost every member of Congress -- they bring jobs and better quality lives to their communities and states. To critics, they are pork barrel spending at its worst.

"Egregious and remarkable," exclaimed Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., about the estimated $24 billion in the bill set aside for highways, bus stops, parking lots and bike trails requested by lawmakers.

McCain, one of only four senators to oppose the bill, listed several dozen "interesting" projects, including $480,000 to rehabilitate a historic warehouse on the Erie Canal and $3 million for dust control mitigation on Arkansas rural roads.

His favorite, he said, was $2.3 million for landscaping on the Ronald Reagan Freeway in California. "I wonder what Ronald Reagan would say."

Reagan, in fact, vetoed a highway bill over what he said were spending excesses, only to be overridden by Congress. Meanwhile, according to a Cato Institute analysis, special projects or "earmarks" numbered 10 in 1982, 152 in 1987, 538 in 1991 and 1,850 in 1998. The 1998 highway act set aside some $9 billion for earmarks, well under half the newest plan.

"This bill will be known as the most earmarked transportation bill in the history of our nation," said Keith Ashdown, vice president of policy for Taxpayers for Common Sense, which tracks such projects in congressional legislation...

...few lawmakers are willing to turn down a new road or bridge in their district...

Lawmakers were sending out press releases bragging of their accomplishments even before the bill was passed, said Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste. "It's a symbol of why everything else is out of control, not just highways."

The biggest beneficiaries tend to be the lawmakers with the biggest clout...

The highway bill is one area where the minority Democrats aren't forgotten...

Not every lawmaker came seeking gifts. Two conservative Republicans from Arizona, Jeff Flake and John Shadegg, wrote Young asking that the $14 million the committee was allotting to each House member for earmarks be sent instead to the state transportation department.

Flake's office said that in the end he didn't take any projects, and Flake and Shadegg were two of only eight House members to vote against the bill.

An earlier posting first highlighted the ridiculous actions contained in the highway bill.

It is all part of a game where politicians of both parties spend a portion of our hard-earned monies as if those funds were nothing but Monopoly play money.

Why does this happen? Because Misguided Incentives Drive Public Sector Taxation.

A more complete discussion of the perverse incentives that exist within the public sector are discussed in the posting entitled A Call to Action: Responding to Government Being Neither Well-Meaning Nor Focused on the Public Interest, where numerous links provide the opportunity to dive more deeply into both the root causes and the symptoms of an irresponsible, out-of-control public sector.

AFL-CIO Splintering? Not in Rhode Island

I noted with interest the national splintering of the AFL-CIO and wondered what effect it would have on this, one of the most "labor-friendly" states in the union. According to this report on this subject in today's ProJo, RI ranks 1st in New England and 9th nationally in percent of union employees in the workforce. Let's consider these figures (from the ProJo story)

About 17 percent of Rhode Island's work force of 494,000 was under union contracts in 2004, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The national average is 12.5 percent. . .

. . . almost all public employees in the state are covered by union contracts; state and municipal employees now make up about half the state's unionized members. There is little room for union growth among public employees. [Unless, of course, you unionize a new group, like say home day care workers, say? --MAC]

Doing the math, that means 8-9% (or around 40,000 people) of our state work force is composed of unionized government employees. As we all know, this is a substantial political bloc.

Apparently, labor leaders, such as the AFL-CIO's Rhode Island leader George Nee, are all a bit in the dark, though there is a desire to maintain strong ties. That's understandable. This very unity of various organized labor groups has been one of the key factors in making them the strongest single political player in our state.

A major goal, said Nee, is keeping together WorkingRI, a labor-financed lobbying coalition that includes some unions not currently in the AFL-CIO. The coalition lobbies at the State House on issues that affect both union and nonunion workers.

Among the topics WorkingRI advances are organizing state daycare workers, increasing the state minimum wage, and pushing for better workplace safety.

Rhode Island unions helped build the state Democratic Party, and union leaders are still influential in the party; Frank Montanaro, AFL-CIO state president, is also Rhode Island's Democratic national committeeman.

Democratic party leaders are confident that the division on the national level will not spill over into a weakening of labor support for local Democrats running for office, said William Lynch, the state Democratic chairman.

So, while

The leaders of the dissident unions say that the AFL-CIO, under president John Sweeney, spent too much money on trying to elect Democrats to Congress and the presidency, and not enough on organizing campaigns to sign up more workers.

Nonetheless, it would appear that Sweeney's tactic is what works here in Rhode Island and nothing is going to change any time soon.