Live by the judicial decision, die by the judicial decision

Largely unable to persuade in the court of public opinion, progressives have spent the last five decades imposing their eschaton-immanentizing worldview on the rest of us through activist courts of the third-branch, impervious-to-democratic-impulse type. The problem with that strategy of legal subjugation is that the courts do not always cooperate.

Yesterday the Supreme Court decided (rightly, in my view) that the Second Amendment secures to individual, private citizens the right to bear arms. (See Ed Whelan's helpful summary, here.) And a million liberal lawyers groaned audibly.

Kennedy's disregard for the meaning of words

Justice Kennedy is at it again. Writing for a 5-4 majority Kennedy today announced that the death penalty may not be imposed upon those who rape children. The natural repugnance decent people feel for child rapists is borne not out of any defect of reason but rather out of an intuitive understanding that child rape is a horrible, awful, indefensible, inexplicably depraved act. Justice Kennedy regards that intuition with contempt.

Kennedy is equally contemptuous of the rule of law and the meaning of words. According to the AP report (I have not yet read the decision), Kennedy reasoned, "The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child." However, the U.S. Constitution contains no requirement that punishment be proportional. Instead, it prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. If execution is not cruel and unusual for a murderer, nothing in logic suggests that it would be cruel or unusual for a child rapist. But in Justice Kennedy's world, in which we are all voiceless subjects, words have no meaning.

Import Tariff on Oil?

Today, during my usual morning intake of Morning Joe, I watched as Pat Buchanan and Tom Friedman agreed that our addiction to oil can only be broken with an import tariff. This discussion was based on Friedman's new book and articles he has written in the past. So, why does this matter?

I believe it marks a unique point in our current events since protectionist conservatives (yes, they exist and Buchanan has always been one. See the Nixon Administration for evidence of this.) and liberal Greenies see the same solution to different problems. In Buchanan's case, protection of "Made in USA" label and in Friedman's case, the reduction of greenhouse gases. The trouble is that if this coalition gains traction we will start down the slippery slope of protectionism and add substantial recessionary pressure to the US economy.

The argument for import tariffs is that the tariff will further increase the price of gasoline, shrinking demand. Additionally, the tariff would generate revenue for the US treasury which could be used for the various and sundry purposes the Federal Government finds to spend our money. The argument goes that instead of feeding foreign government coffers we will feed our government coffers.

Well let's look at some of the inherent problems with a tariff:
-First, the world price for oil will not change. The only place where the price will change is where the tariff is in place (the US).
-If you could up with an argument that the price for oil would drop then the US would be subsidizing world economic growth at our expense. The reason is that while the world would be paying a new low price, the US would still pay a high price. This price differential would give world industry a competitive advantage over US industry.
-There would be a fine balance between government receipts created from the tariff and economic activity lost for the same reason. Could government get it right? Likely not. It would probably require a good bit of tinkering.
-Tangentially, RECESSION and INFLATION. Adding a fixed tariff would drive up prices for energy intensive goods (everything is energy intensive) this would likely drive up prices and would likely stifle growth and cause recession. I defy policymakers to come up with a way that this could be avoided. The only scenario under which it can be is to have an alternative source. Currently, this alternative does not exist. Oh, and please don't say corn based ethanol.
-Finally, increasing the price of oil would disproportionally effect those without discretionary income i.e. the suburban, rural poor, who rely exclusively on automobile transportation.

Hopefully policymakers will see the myriad issues related to tariff increases. Even more importantly, let's hope Pat Buchanan and Tom Friedman drop the subject.

Typical...

It is so predictable. The minute a Republican actually becomes vocal and decides to fight for Republican principles a legion of status quo me-first GOP'ers begin to criticize the action. And again in predictable fashion, the criticism never comes on the record because they are too cowardly to associate their name in public with their bitter sour grapes. Rather, they use the oldest trick in the Washington playbook, the anonymous quote.

Some Republicans say the Republican Study Committee’s ongoing push to define the House GOP’s election-year message is a thinly veiled attempt by the group’s chairman, Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, and other members to put their political ambitions ahead of party needs.

“We should be really focused on the majority party,” said one senior GOP aide. “This is all about giving [Hensarling] the stature, given [presumptive GOP presidential nominee Sen.] John McCain’s anti-earmark position, to get him nominated to a senior position in that administration. It is so obvious and he is doing it at the worst time for the Conference. None of this is helpful for anyone other than him.”

Hensarling is not known to be particularly close to McCain, but he was mentored by former Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, a McCain ally who chaired the National Republican Senatorial Committee when Hensarling was executive director.

The messaging push has led to speculation about Hensarling’s ambitions should McCain win the presidency or if party losses in the House open positions in the GOP leadership. The ambitions of other top members of the RSC, including Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana and House Chief Deputy Minority Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia, have also been the subject of discussion.

This is what status quo power-hungry leadership types have been saying about reformers for years. When Mike Pence was chairman of the conservative Republican Study Group, the nasty leadership aide quotes were everywhere then too. Hensarling should look at these pathetic snipes as a badge of honor. If leadership aides weren't fabricating stories about the chairman of the RSC it would be clear that said chairman was not doing his job. Hensarling is being effective and relevant, and that pisses some people off.

They should get over it. For the good fo the Party and more importantly a nation that desperately needs some real leadership.

The September 10 Candidate

We have here called Barack Obama the Candidate of the Past because of his extraordinary resemblence to Jimmy Carter. Obama is mired in the failed policy proposals of the 1970's.

As Andrew McCarthy today points out, Obama is also mired in the failed national security mindset of another moment of the past, September 10, 2001. McCarthy drives the point home:

When an elitist lawyer like Obama claims the criminal-justice system works against terrorists, he means it satisfies his top concern: due process. And on that score, he’s quite right: We’ve shown we can conduct trials that are fair to the terrorists. After all, we give them lawyers paid for by the taxpayers whom they are trying to kill, mounds of our intelligence in discovery, and years upon years of pretrial proceedings, trials, appeals, and habeas corpus.

As a national-security strategy, however, and as a means of carrying our government’s first responsibility to protect the American people, heavy reliance on criminal justice is an abysmal failure.

A successful counterterrorism strategy makes criminal prosecution a subordinate part of a much broader governmental response. Most of what is needed never happens in a courtroom. It happens in military operations against terrorist strongholds; intelligence operations in which jihadists get assassinated — without trial; intelligence collections in which we cozy up to despicable informants since only they can tell us what we need to know; and aggressive treasury actions to trace terror funds.

Barack Obama lacks the will to oversee these necessary operations, and he is far too enthralled with his own moral and intellectual superiority to deal honestly with the problem of terrorism. For the preservation of all that is good about Western civilization and this great nation, the Candidate of the Past must be defeated.

Supreme Court Roundup

Having been on vacation for two weeks, I missed entirely an annual June tradition. Each year about this time the justices of the United States Supreme Court hand down from on high tablets of stone containing enlightened pronouncements on the state of American law. Some of these pronouncements are sensible, coherent, and foundational to ordered liberty. These tend to be written by Chief Justice Roberts or Justices Scalia, Thomas, or Alito.

Other pronouncements are written by Justices Kennedy, Ginsburg, Stevens, Breyer, or Souter. These tend to be destructive of the rule of law, inconsistent, breathtakingly dismissive of common sense and the meaning of words, and coherent only to mainstream media commentators and liberal law professors.

Into the latter categorty falls last week's Boumediene decision. NRO has an excellent summary of that disastrous judicial event.

I have not yet read today's Dada decision. And Matthew Franck's handy Kennedy Rule, useful for determining whether a SCOTUS case was wrongly decided, does not pertain because the court did not in Dada declare anything unconstitutional. However, it is worth noting that Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in Dada on behalf of Ginsburg, Stevens, Breyer, and Souter. Scalia, Roberts, Thomas, and Alito dissent.

I repeat that I have not yet read the decision. It is possible that the majority correctly decided Dada. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Another twisted New York Times columnist

I missed this column last week while on vacation, but Rick Garnett directed attention to it at Mirror of Justice. According to NYT columnist Judith Warner, dads who encourage their daughters to wait for sex until marriage are distinguishable only by slight degree from dads who imprison their daughters in dungeons and rape them repeatedly. Warner expresses "horror" at the commitment of evangelical fathers to protect their daughters' purity, a protection she labels "emotional violence." And, in Warner's twisted worldview, fathers who affirm the beauty of their daughters commit emotional incest.

And liberals wonder why we call it a culture war.

The case for curiosity -- civic evangelicalism part 4

This is part 4 of an ongoing series. See part 1, part 2, and part 3.

A common criticism of evangelicals is that we are, on the whole, rather dogmatic, even anti-intellectual. We are slow to ask questions, quick to provide answers, no matter how unreasonable. We are slow to reflect, quick to opine. We are slow to question Christian dogma, quick to reject secular dogmas. And we are slow to consider criticisms of us, quick to criticize things we do not understand, or care to understand.

Like many generalizations, these sweep with fairly broad strokes. Not all evangelicals are dogmatic, unthinking, know-nothings, but many are. Instances of evangelical theonomism are well-known and receive much press. The Bible says x, therefore Americans ought to endorse y policy, buy n product, or support z institution. This sort of reasoning is as counter-productive as it is juvenile. Non-Christians do not accept the authority of Scripture. And they reasonably chafe at the thought of living in an evangelical, theonomous nation.

Historically, Christian arguments have persuaded when Christians have avoided the Bible-thumping and done two things instead: (1) employed publicly-accessible reasoning, and (2) asked lots of questions. For a biblical model of the first method, think of Paul in the Areopagus, co-opting the Athenians' alter to an Unknown God (Acts 17). For the second, consider Jesus' questioning of his disciples, which led to Peter's confession of faith (Matthew 16:13-17). For an example of a didactic, unquestioning lecture failing entirely to persuade an audience, consider Stephen, who so enraged the Sanhedrin with his righteous pontification that they stoned him to death (Acts 7).

In our own day, the Christians who have the most intellectual influence dispense with dogmatic and scriptural assertions altogether, and instead reason in publicly-accessible language and venues. Consider the difference between two different arguments against abortion. The Know Nothing asserts that God knits the baby in the mother's womb and that human life has special "sanctity." There's nothing mistaken with those claims. But concepts like creation and sanctity have no meaning to non-Christians. So this argument does not persuade. Instead, it comes across as supercilious and simplistic.

Furthermore, these assertions gloss over some real weaknesses in the pro-life argument. Many pro-lifers have no answers to difficult questions. Shouldn't women have the right to control their own bodies? Doesn't the Constitution guarantee a right to autonomy? Why should the interests of a zygote trump the rights of an adult woman? Slogans about the sanctity of human life do not answer these questions.

By contrast, the thoughtful evangelical points out: that humans choose things that are good; that human life is good, both because it enables the liver to enjoy other goods, such as affection, play, knowledge, etc, and because life is good in an of itself; that unborn humans are indistinguishable in nature and character from born humans, and are therefore members of the human family. From these observations the thoughtful evangelical persuasively demonstrates that unborn children ought to be chosen as goods in and of themselves, and that the intentional destruction of unborn humans is evil and unjust.

Christians ought to be curious not merely better to persuade, but also because we care about Truth and desire to pursue it. We ought to countenance the possibility that we are wrong. If we are wrong we ought to repent, and questioning our own assumptions is the only way to discover our errors. If we are right, questioning our assumptions gives us greater confidence in our convictions and helps us better explain our reasoning.

All of these benefits of intellectual curiosity follow only if we are both humble and confident. We need to practice intellectual humility and admit that we don't know everything perfectly, or even well. At the same time, we need to be confident that our God is a God of Truth -- in fact, He is the Author of Truth because He created the universe -- and that we have nothing to fear from intellectual exploration.

Justice Hillary

This is absolutely terrifying:

If Barack Obama is elected president, mutual friends say the best course for Hillary Clinton might be nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court rather than staying in the Senate.

Clinton is also talked about as suitable for secretary of state in an Obama administration. The consensus among her friends is that she would not be content forging a lifetime career in the Senate, as Sen. Edward M. Kennedy did after he lost the 1980 presidential nomination.

A footnote: The last confirmed Supreme Court nominee without prior judicial experience was Lewis Powell, a prestigious attorney from Richmond, Va., named by President Richard M. Nixon in 1971. No high court selection has had so modest a legal background as Clinton since President John F. Kennedy named football star Byron (Whizzer) White in 1962.

Of course, it is terrifying because Hillary is an outright liberal politician. The Supreme Court is supposed to be devoid of politics. To date, the left has at least had the decency to pretend to nominate non-political judges. I suppose there would be one commendable thing about a Hillary nomination: the left would finally be admitting that they see the Supreme Court as an extension of the legislature where they need dutiful liberals to legislative their agenda from the bench.

On saying one thing, and doing another...

Investor's Business Daily:

Fiscal Policy: The Senate's new $3 trillion budget for 2009 is big, but it fails to do something vital to the U.S. economy: extend President Bush's tax cuts. If this isn't fixed, we'll soon face the largest tax hike in our history.

The Senate's action on Wednesday to approve the spending plan came on a 48-45 vote over Republican objections. The House is also expected to pass the measure this week.

Democrats sounded almost giddy. The budget "will strengthen the economy and create jobs," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat. "It will provide tax cuts for the middle class, and it will restore fiscal responsibility by balancing the books by 2012 and maintaining balance in 2013."

Fine-sounding sentiments all. But parse those words for a moment. Virtually everything Conrad says is false, and in no small way.

Read it all.

Incidentally, budgeting like this is exactly what we will get, and worse under an Obama Administration.

Cap and spend

Forget for a moment the very real argument over whether or not a so-called cap and trade bill would help the environment. Focus instead on exactly what dirty politicians in Congress are doing with this massive transfer of wealth. They are enriching themselves, while screwing the economy. The Wall Street Journal nails it:

Sponsored by Joe Lieberman and John Warner, the bill would put a cap on carbon emissions that gets lowered every year. But to ease the pain and allow for economic adjustment, the bill would dole out "allowances" under the cap that would stand for the right to emit greenhouse gases. Senator Barbara Boxer has introduced a package of manager's amendments that mandates total carbon reductions of 66% by 2050, while earmarking the allowances.

When cap and trade has been used in the past, such as to reduce acid rain, the allowances were usually distributed for free. A major difference this time is that the allowances will be auctioned off to covered businesses, which means imposing an upfront tax before the trade half of cap and trade even begins. It also means a gigantic revenue windfall for Congress.

Ms. Boxer expects to scoop up auction revenues of some $3.32 trillion by 2050. Yes, that's trillion. Her friends in Congress are already salivating over this new pot of gold. The way Congress works, the most vicious floor fights won't be over whether this is a useful tax to create, but over who gets what portion of the spoils. In a conference call with reporters last Thursday, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry explained that he was disturbed by the effects of global warming on "crustaceans" and so would be pursuing changes to ensure that New England lobsters benefit from some of the loot.

Of course most of the money will go to human constituencies, especially those with the most political clout. In the Boxer plan, revenues are allocated down to the last dime over the next half-century. Thus $802 billion would go for "relief" for low-income taxpayers, to offset the higher cost of lighting homes or driving cars. Ms. Boxer will judge if you earn too much to qualify.

Read it all.