The Bosque Boys

Cleaning out my queue of unfinished drafts. From some time during the primary season:

For much of the pre-season phase (pre-Iowa and New Hampshire) of Decision 2008, the Okie Gardener gently admonished me to abandon the "horse race" aspect of the campaign and join him in his quest for substance.

Later, after I began to write critically of Barack Obama, advocates for "CHANGE" called on me to refrain from dwelling on his rhetoric, middle name, race, faith, lack of experience, and other matters apart from substance.

All of these questions and exhortations presume that we will pick our next president based on his or her collective stance on the issues--which is altogether logical.

Why have I virtually ignored "the issues" thus far (save for Iraq and the "war on terror")?

Simply, I do not believe that some slate of agreed-upon major issues that confront us an a nation actually will play a telling role in the fall. Undoubtedly, one or two key issues of concern will emerge between now and then--mostly depending on what seemingly crucial event might be the most ever-present in our minds at that particular moment: the economy? Likely. Iraq? This is already much less prevalent than most of us thought it would be.

If the summer proves uncharacteristically hot, perhaps we will be tuned into global warming? Will the news media and the Democratic nominee succeed in creating a sense of urgency over healthcare? Maybe. Or will something wholly unforeseen enter our consciousness between now and then that completely overshadows all other concerns?

What can I safely say will not be a major issue in the fall campaign? The future of American education or our impending crisis of structural debt, which includes social security, medicare, and other entitlements, [which] is not titillating enough to keep the attention of the electorate. The ultimate contradiction of our time? The desire for a low-tax, small government society in which all our needs are met by wise leadership and sound public institutions that protect us from ourselves. There is no political advantage in telling us that this combination is not possible; therefore, I bet the farm that this subject will not emerge in any of the televised debates.

Changes in the United States happen incrementally. With the exception of Franklin Roosevelt and the "New Deal," revolutions in America have not happened at the ballot box. And in the case of FDR, the electorate was swept up in a national sense of crisis--panic, etc. For the record, few could have imagined the impending transformation based on Roosevelt's campaign rhetoric or the Democratic Party platform of 1932.

The United States of America is a big ship. Specific policy ideas and proposals from any one successful candidate during one election cycle generally does not have much impact on the course of American history. On the other hand, larger philosophical positions have a greater impact over time. Therefore, this raging debate within the Republican faithful over who we are and who best personifies that collective consciousness strikes me as much more meaningful. The problem, however, is that the current candidates seem disinclined to engage that internal maelstrom.

I began writing this at some point in 2007, unaware of the positive changes that would have spread over Iraq by the spring of 2008, the looming economic meltdown that would begin in late summer, or the historic crossroads presented by the fall election. This post is incomplete and somewhat indistinct (it looks like I might have been attempting a great treatise on American government). No matter, for lack of anything better to say right now, I am releasing it as an unfinished thought from that moment in time.

Is the United States of America a democracy?

A caller to C-SPAN's Washington Journal a few weeks back, representing himself as a lifelong Republican loyalist, wanted to know why this president seemed bound and determined to wreck "his party" by flying in the face of the overwhelming expression of the popular will on Iraq and the "children's health" bill?

A letter writer to the Waco Tribune Herald (but you may insert any town USA), disgusted with "Bush's war," proclaims:

"Politicians in this country are so disconnected from the constituents that democracy, the true definition of that word, simply does not exist here."

Resolved: The vast majority of Americans, as evidenced by public opinion polls and the last mid-term election, no longer support our presence in Iraq; therefore, the majority should rule, Congress should pass legislation to correct the President's failed policy, and instruct the military to initiate a withdrawal sequence.

Resolved: Public opinion polling indicates that the vast majority of Americans suppport the Democratic Party's proposed expansion of SCHIP; therefore, the President should accede to the will of the people.

Right? Wrong.

Is the United States of America a democracy? Or, as high school history teachers and talk radio hosts like to ask, is the United States a republic?

Yes.

The answer is both--and then some. The United States is a pluralistic, quasi-federal, constitutional representative democracy with republican roots.

The Constitution of 1787 provides for republican government. When we pledge allegiance to the flag, we pledge allegiance to the "republic for which it stands." On the other hand, the clear intent of the framers lost out to a cultural revolution, which began almost as soon as the national government came into being and democratized American politics. History texts commonly refer to the great change as Jacksonian Democracy--but it is also correctly associated with Thomas Jefferson, the first two-party system, and the so-called Republican Revolution of 1800.

Definitions:

republic: a state in which supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote, exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them, and in which the head of government is not a monarch or other hereditary head of state.

democracy: government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system; a state of society characterized by formal equality of rights and privileges.

How it happened:

The Patriots of the American Revolution hoped that they were birthing an age of republican government animated by virtue. However, people like James Madison quickly surmised that Americans were no more virtuous than humanity in general, and they conceived a government necessarily more realistic about the nature of man.

Therefore, the framers devised a fairly intricate system of divided government in which three jealous departments compete against one another and sometimes internally for authority. The system of checks and balances, which has served us so well, is essentially a framework for consensus government. Most of the time, little happens without broad agreement.

No one person has ever exerted ultimate control over the system. To date, no one faction or institution has proven capable of rising to the top of the greasy pole of American government for a dangerously extended period of time. Men and women come and go. Parties are born, rise, fall, pass away completely, and, sometimes, rise again. But the system perseveres.

What of majority rule?

Here is how majority rule works under Mr. Madison's plan for government:

Many diverse constituencies and institutions exert their influence on national decision making. Instead of public policy turning on a dime, the framers designed a system resistant to "temporary enthusiasms" and "popular passions."

A Side Question: What happens when the popular will is in opposition to the public interest?

American Revolution-era republicans hoped that statesman, when presented with hard choices, would choose wise governance over popular sentiment, accepting the consequences of doing the right but unpopular thing.

However, once the optimism gave way to realization, the framers scrambled to construct a system in which popular majorities exerted due influence without facilitating a "tyranny of the majority" (a phrase Alexis de Tocqueville would coin a generation later).

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Now that's funny right there. I don't care who you are.

Infidel Bloggers' Alliance links to the video.

Warning: for those of us who grew up on farms, ignore the anatomically incorrect "bulls" and go on the mind-trip.

Recently Instapundit linked to this story from Popular Mechanics on the Top Ten Startup Car Makers.

These are ten new companies that are either in production, or near production of automobiles. Some of them are performance gas-guzzlers. Others are electric cars. One is a speciality police car.

Historically in the United States, and it has served us well, businesses came into being and passed out of being--a constant state of creative ferment: Darwinism in the economic realm where the fittest survive. Remember A&P? Montgomery Ward? Remember America before Wal-Mart? Before Apple? Ultimately the consumer benefits.

Preserving the Big Three with government money freezes the status quo in place. May be the best thing that can happen to American auto manufacturing is for one or more of the big guys to tank, and a new collection of car makers to grow.

New technologies also contribute to this creative ferment. The demise of demand for whale-oil hit certain New England seaports hard. But the increased demand for petroleum did wonders for parts of Pennsylvania, Texas, Oklahoma, etc. Overall, as old jobs disappeared, new ones appeared.

Transitions are tough on people. No doubt about it. But what are the alternatives?

Think of a continuum--a line where one color gradually shades into another color without sharp breaks. This contimuum represents Industrial society. At one end is laissez-faire capitalism--Capitalism with no restraints. In Capitalism the means of production are in private hands, and the decision-making is in private hands. At the other end of the continuum is pure Socialism--the means of production and decision-making are in public (read government) hands. Various combinations are in between. Pure Socialism has never been very good at benefitting the masses. While the elites do OK, the masses stand in line for toilet paper. On the other hand, at the end of the nineteenth century we learned that pure laissez-faire Capitalism led to monopolies, abuse of workers, and other bad things. So we moved to regulated Capitalism. The means of production remained in private hands, and decision-making remained in private hands within the bounds of regulations to ensure competition, humane treatment of workers, etc. This has worked out pretty well. (Distributivism, such as G.K.Chesterton espoused following Pope Leo XIII, results in a pre-industrial society, I think.)

We are now, I think, at a point in our nation's history when we may be sliding a bit farther down the continuum from Regulated-Capitalism toward the Socialist end. That direction does not promise prosperity.

And there is another worry. Liberty is a fragile condition. Most human beings in the history of the world have not had much. Moving toward the Socialist end of the spectrum, taking more out of private hands and putting it under government control, creates a stronger and stronger government. Stronger governments are threats to Liberty, even if the government thinks it has noble motives.

We may be moving in this direction because we have come to believe that life should have no risk, that there should be no suffering or hardship. Not possible. A world without risk or hardship is a world without Liberty, and without personal responsibility.

Am I being callous? No. I want reasonable Unemployment Insurance for American workers. And I want government limited so that there is money for private charity. But sometimes people must move to find work. Sometimes people must change jobs. The European model is becoming unsustainable even in Europe. We should take a lesson.

Today, the House Democratic Caucus voted 137-122 to oust John Dingell as chair of the Energy and Commerce committee and replace him with Henry Waxman.

What does this mean?

You can read this informative news/analysis piece from The Hill for starters.

This quote from Nancy Pelosi says it all:

“Under his leadership, the committee and the entire caucus will make progress toward making America energy-independent, making healthcare available to all Americans, and addressing the greatest challenge of our time, global warming.”

As the Hill reports, Waxman will be a "liberal, aggressive, and activist chairman." Read this as a sign that Speaker Pelosi does not intend to lay low and/or capitulate in the face of a potentially common-sense oriented Obama administration. It is also some payback for Dingell, who had the temerity to resist the Speaker's proposed war on climate change.

Bottom Line: Nancy Pelosi and Left Coast liberalism are alive and well in the 111th Congress. Thank you very much.

I heard a fairly cantankerous interview with Barney Frank this morning.

In response to a request for clarification from the interviewer, Frank testily responded: "Right, I'm trying to explain to you how it works." Congressman Frank went on to chastise the reporter on several more occasions, continued to interrupt and talk over him incessantly, and then began his concluding statement by declaring: "you seem determined to kind of distort this."

Another encounter with Bill O'Reilly? No. This was an NPR segment with Steve Inskeep.

Barney Frank is a man so combative that he cannot even seem civil with NPR.

What are we going to do with this fellow now that he is in charge of overseeing our financial system?

The cranky exchange this morning concerned Frank's insistence that we bail out our struggling domestic automobile companies.

Frank is not bashful about telling you what he thinks:

--the car companies should be rescued to save workers and remedy the "white collar/blue collar divide,” fight against the rampant and systemic "anti-union activity," and attempt to address "income inequality in this country."

--we seem to be willing to spend "hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of billions for a war that we never should have been in [Iraq], but we don't save an important industry and protect workers from having gains that they fought hard for taken away."

--we live in "a wealthy country. If we spend things well, we can spend them."

With the fundamental problems with labor and health care costs, is any of this even spending on the Big Three likely to help?

--the x factor seems to be health care. "if they have to stay with health care the way it is now, yeah, that's bleak. But what I am hoping is that we will get a change in the health care system that will reduce the burden that we put not just on the American auto industry, where it's more expensive to build a car in America than in Canada because of health care."

The Frank Plan:

1. Save the UAW at taxpayer expense.

2. Ditch Iraq and spend the peace dividend on reducing inequities.

3. Universal healthcare.

The Okie Gardener asserted earlier today that Barney Frank presents a real obstacle to Barack Obama's success as president. Finding a way to keep Barney in his cage will be an ongoing problem for the new administration. I wish them well.

I agree with the Gardener, the way the Auto Bail Out shakes out will tell us a lot.

We have mentioned before that according to Islamic understanding, Obama was born a Muslim since his father was Muslim. Becoming Christian made him an apostate, subject to the death penalty anywhere sharia law prevails.

Al Qaeda Calls Obama an Apostate.

Zawahiri also criticised Mr Obama - whose father is Muslim - for betraying the Islamic world.

"You were born to a Muslim father, but you chose to stand in the ranks of the enemies of the Muslims, and pray the prayer of the Jews, although you claim to be Christian, in order to climb the rungs of leadership in America," he said.

Mr Obama was not an "honourable black American" like Malcolm X, he said, but an "abeed al-beit" - a word that translates as house slave but was rendered "house negro" in the message's English subtitles.

I recall that bin Laden also used the term "slave" to refer to blacks.

The Democratic caucus in the United States Senate voted 42 to 13 to retain Joe Lieberman as chair of the Homeland Security Committee.

This is an immensely gracious act. It is the right thing to do--but it would have been deliciously satisfying for a whole slew of irate Democrats to publicly humiliate the maverick senator from Connecticut.

But they did not.

Why?

They may need him. If the two outstanding elections in Minnesota and Georgia are settled in the Democrats favor, Joe Lieberman might make the difference in terms of a filibuster-proof super majority.

However, I tend to believe that the filibuster magic number is much less (and by that I mean MUCH LESS) important than most pundits like to imagine. President Obama will write his own ticket for the 111th Congress and will likely prove virtually unstoppable on any issue he pleases. His only governor will be his own restraint.

More compelling, President-elect Obama evidently threw his weight behind this act of forgiveness and reconciliation. Why? Perhaps he really is a scrupulous follower of Christ, who lives his life based on the tenets expressed in the Sermon on the Mount. Or, perhaps he is an incredibly insightful politician who understands that an olive branch is often a wiser and more profitable weapon than the sledgehammer. Forgiving Lieberman and bringing him back into the fold affirms the image of Obama as a new Lincoln--and very likely obligates Joe to him for life. Either explanation (or, more likely, somewhere in between) pleases me.

Whether someone lives a good life because it is "the law," and/or the fear of Hell motivates them to follow the commands of God, or whether one embraces the spirit of Christ and does good in the world because his heart dictates such conduct, makes no great difference to me.

More pointedly, even if this is merely a political calculation, doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is much preferable than doing the wrong thing with a conflicted heart or guilty conscience.

BOTTOM LINE. My reason for optimism: on the whole, I like this pattern of conduct. Specifically, we love Joe, and we are happy that President-elect Obama saw fit to offer him a place of honor in America's future.

Knights of Columbus national headquarters has received mysterious white powder in the mail, probably because of the KofC support for Proposition 8 in California. Story here. The powder apparently is harmless, but was disruptive.

Here is the text of Proposition 8 from the State of California Voter Guide.

PROPOSITION 8
This initiative measure is submitted to the people in accordance with the
provisions of Article II, Section 8, of the California Constitution.
This initiative measure expressly amends the California Constitution by
adding a section thereto; therefore, new provisions proposed to be added are
printed in italic type to indicate that they are new.
SECTION 1. Title
This measure shall be known and may be cited as the “California Marriage
Protection Act.”
SECTION 2. Section 7.5 is added to Article I of the California Constitution,
to read:
SEC. 7.5. Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized
in California

Mormons also have been subjected to vandalism and white powder mailings. Story here.

Not only have several congregations been picketed, but an Assembly of God church in Michigan had its service disrupted. Story here.

Play by the rules guys. Campaigns. Advertising. Orderly marches. All fine. Vandalism. Fake anthrax attacks. Disrupting worship services. Not fine. In a democracy, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. When you lose, continue to work within the system. Don't go Brownshirt.

I can even handle peaceful protests outside churches. Though ACT UP is known for its non-peaceful protests of Roman Catholic churches. Story here. Those actions described in this article did not approach the levels of the infamous 1989 ACT UP demonstrations.

Acting like fascists will not win friends and influence people.

Drudge today has lots of news about pirates, mostly operating out of Somalia.

A few thoughts.

1. More and more shipping in the world is done under Third-World flags--Liberia, for example--in order to avoid the wage and health & safety regulations, and taxes, of First-World Nations. My first reaction is to let the companies reap the harvest they sowed. If you chose to register your vessel in a small, back-water nation, then let the Liberian Navy rescue your ship. You deliberately chose not to pay taxes to support things like a military navy, so why should we rescue you?

2. Many First-World nations, such as Canada and many European countries, have chosen to diminish their military capabilities in order to maintain their elaborate social-welfare systems. Why should they be able to count on the U.S. Navy to police the seas while not maintaining the strength to protect their own interests. My second reaction is to let the nation whose cargo it is go get their ship.

3. Somalia is no longer a country. It is a bit of territory without an effectively functioning government. We probably need to bring back Teddy Roosevelt's doctrine that the civilized nations of the world bear a responsibility to maintain order. But, and this is my third thought, doing something about Somalia should not be a U.S. responsibility. Give Multilateralism a chance. Force the U.N. to demonstrate whether it is useful or not. If not, evict it from New York and let the U.S. partner up with nations of similar interests and values.

4. Pirates should not be treated as domestic criminals. They have declared war on the rest of the world. Bring back the old meaning of the word "outlaw," one who has placed himself outside the protection of the law. My fourth thought is that upon capture pirates should be hung from the neck until dead without delay. No trials. And, like in the Old West where "ride with outlaws, hang with outlaws" was the motto; Sail with pirates, hang with pirates.

5. As a corollary, pirate ships should be sunk without remorse. Recently a British frigate launched Royal Marines in inflatable boats to capture a pirate ship. The pirates opened fire on the Marines who returned fire, killing a few pirates without suffering casualties themselves, and capturing the remaining pirates. My fifth thought is that those Royal Marines, and others like them, should not have been put at risk. If you are sure it's a pirate ship, blow it away.

p.s. If I were Obama, and wanted to get my bona fides early at low cost, I'd go aggressive, sink some pirate ships and shell some havens.