"Hence, the less government we have, the better, — the fewer laws, and the less confided power. The antidote to this abuse of formal Government, is, the influence of private character, the growth of the Individual."- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Leonard Pitts, meet Ralph Waldo Emerson.  He is the very soul of a pseudo-intellectual who criticizes as simple-minded and foolish a philosophy he clearly does not understand.  Superficial hand-wringing rather than substantive debate is all that he can afford to those with whom he disagrees.

Leonard Pitts is a Pulitzer prize winning writer whose column appears in the Miami Herald. He began a recent column entitled "Ron Paul’s consistency doesn’t make him right" by quoting a Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "Self Reliance" as follows: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." That consistency, says Pitts, is why Ron Paul "is willing, often to a fault, to follow his ideology to its logical and most extreme conclusions."  Pitts gives Paul credit for being intellectually honest in a field of Republican presidential hopefuls that often is lacking in that department.  It is clear, however, that Pitts holds Ron Paul's consistency in disdain.

Pitts' primary reason for criticizing Paul seems to center on statements that the Congressman has made regarding the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  He quotes the Congressman as saying recently that the Act "destroyed the principle of private property and private choices."  Nowhere in his column does Pitts dispute the Congressman's point.  Indeed, Pitts seems to know that it would be foolish to contest the point.  This does not concern him, however, because Pitts is not interested in intellectual honesty.  He is only interested in smearing Ron Paul and not so subtly implying that the result of his policies would be rampant racism.

That much is clear when Pitts says that "Maybe it's easy to make freedom an issue of 'property rights' when you have never been the property."  Much like he knows that Ron Paul is right regarding the effect of the Civil Rights Act on property rights, he knows that this statement is an irrelevant bromide meant only to inflame the passions of those of his readers that already agree with him.  The Civil Rights Act had nothing to do with the abhorrent system of chattel slavery that existed in the United States.  Furthermore, when it comes to knowing what it feels like to "be" the property, I hardly think Leonard Pitts is any sort of authority on the matter (unless he had some extremely interesting experiences before he graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in English at the tender age of 19).  No one in the United States can look at the issue from the perspective that Pitts puts forward, not even Pitts himself.

What Pitts means to say, of course, is that individuals do not have an absolute right to do with their actual property (land, buildings, houses, etc.) what they want to as long as they do not harm anyone else.  Whether Pitts is too cowardly to say this or does not even realize that that is the position that he has staked out for himself, I don't know.  His protestation that "similar argument[s] [were] made by segregationists in 1964 -- and by slave owners in the 1850s" does nothing to prove the point he is trying to make: individuals should be forced to use their property in ways that the government deems acceptable.

According to Pitts, Paul believes that "government equals tyranny;"  I think the Congressman would say that government always equals coercion and in many instances equals tyranny, but that's a minor point and one that would probably be lost on Pitts in any case.  Pitts' view of the Civil Rights Act as "government at its best" is puzzling given how he chose to begin his column.  It's clear from this column and from other writing (with which I am only generally familiar) that Pitts falls on the collectivist side of the individualist/collectivist divide.  In certain situations, according to Pitt, the rights of the individual must give way for the greater good of society (which is really to say that the rights of one individual must give way to another individual, but that's another point that is probably lost on Pitts).  This is why Pitts has no problem with the government telling people when and under what circumstances they may exclude other people from their property.

The puzzling part is this: Ralph Waldo Emerson, to whom Pitts appeals to bolster his argument, was a staunch individualist.  Indeed, many individualist anarchists look to Emerson as one of the intellectual forefathers of the modern individualist anarchist movement in the United States.  Although describing Emerson himself as an anarchist is probably not warranted, his influence on people like Henry David Thoreau is undeniable.  In other words, the philosophy to which Pitts adheres is the exact opposite of what Emerson wrote about and promoted during his lifetime.  For Emerson, he viewed government much as Ron Paul does, i.e., "the less government we have, the better."

Toward the end of his column Pitts trots out the predictable parade of horribles to show exactly why Ron Paul's philosophy is so odious ("Poisonous food!  Quack doctors and lawyers with no licenses!  Sooty air!  Tainted drinking water!").  Each of those points can be amply rebutted (and, to some extent, I've done that in other posts here), but in his list of things that you would hate about the Ron Paul Administration, Pitts makes a crucial mistake.  He concludes his scaremongering with this: "unless you really think a black woman in Mississippi, locked out of public places by threat of violence and force of law, should have been required to wait on market forces to rescue her, you must regard Paul’s moral imbecility with a certain appalled awe."

Pitts has just given away his whole case against Ron Paul's philosophy without even realizing it.  Jim Crow was put in place and propped up by government.  Jim Crow didn't just allow discrimination by those who wanted it; it also mandated discrimination by those who abhorred it.  How Pitts can both implicitly acknowledge this fact and completely miss it at the same time is a mystery to me.  Ron Paul and those like him want a government that has no power to give racists legal cover for their prejudices; Pitts wants a government powerful enough to impose any viewpoint on its citizens, the exact sort of government that came up with Jim Crow in the first place.  If anyone should be regarded with "appalled awe" it is Leonard Pitts for failing to realize that he relishes oppressive government so long as it oppresses the people of whom he disapproves.

willing, often to a fault, to

follow his ideology to its logical and most extreme conclusions.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/04/2572053/ron-pauls-consistency-doesnt-make.html#storylink=cpy

Lest anyone accuse me of singling out my Facebook-friend conservatives for criticism, on occasion I stumble across something said by a progressive that gives me at least equal (if not greater) pause. I use the term "progressive" instead of "liberal" because to apply the latter term to the political left in the United States is not, I believe, accurate any longer.  "Liberalism" should be confined to describing the liberals of the 18th and 19th centuries.  Today's so-called "liberals" actually trace their heritage to the progressive movement of the early 20th century and ought to be described as such.  In fact, some of them already claim that label for themselves now.  All of that, however, is an aside.

The article that prompted this particular fit of pique from one of my progressive Facebook acquaintances is one that was written by Jack Hunter entitled "Jim Demint vote to end Iraq War" and can be found at The Daily Caller here.  Along with a link to the article itself, I posted the following excerpt to my Facebook wall:

"If the Republican Party has any interest in limited government or the Constitution, the president’s authority to wage war in Iraq must eventually be revoked. As it stands now, this president and any future president will have the power to do whatever he likes militarily in Iraq without so much as consulting Congress. Many Republican members of Congress were rightly miffed that President Obama did not consult them before his recent military action in Libya. As it stands, Congress now gives any president free rein to do the same in Iraq. Forever.

For conservatives to dismiss war and foreign policy as the one area where presidents should have unlimited power is to dismiss the very purpose of our Constitution’s system of checks and balances. As Madison recognized, the president should not be entrusted with the power to act unilaterally, especially when it comes to war."

I can only assume (based on his comments) that this person read only the excerpt that I posted, not the entire article.  My goal in posting the article was, as I pointed out to him, "to draw the attention of limited government conservatives to their double standard on how limited the government should be."  Self-styled limited government conservatives have a huge blind spot, I think, when it comes to the military and foreign policy.  Perhaps the fact that this particular commenter is not a limited government conservative is why he missed my point (or ignored it, I'm still not sure which).

His initial response (all spelling and punctuation as in original) began with: "I remember Bush getting into iraq based on lie concerning WMD. Libya was handle well because it was a coalition action not a US action. Congress most days can't decide if they are going to reaffirm the federal motto or do meaningful work. "  That seemed completely irrelevant to the point that Jack Hunter was trying to make, but as the discussion progressed it became slightly more clear the point he was trying to make.  His second comment:

I am only for using military force when it makes sense. Iraq was largely because Bush support those in the military industry and his buddies at oil companies. Most of the Bush resolution lacked any sort of sense. Libya was quickly handled-- we are still Iraq. See the difference?

Well, yes, of course the situations are different in some respects; I never claimed they were exactly the same in all respects (nor was that the point Jack Hunter was trying to make). He ended with this:

War is different than military force. One is constitutionally province of congress the other is for the commander and chief. Some forget that when their guy is not in office and try to constrain everything possible. Libya was not for our interests but the Libyan people. That is why a coalition of countries made the call for diplomatic reasons it was not a US only call. Though among us think the US is this perstine thing that requires absolute nationalism. I personally think extreme ideas like nationalism is ignored as the belief of the ignorant. You know people who watch Fox News and read Orielly book this year before it hits the bargain bin.

For someone who is a self-proclaimed "Moderate Democrat" I found those first couple sentences to be somewhat stunning.  While he (rightly) criticizes President Bush for the decision to go to war in Iraq (although he apparently ignores the international coalition that supported that war, such as it was), he not only excuses but praises President Obama's decision to commit the U.S. military to Libya.

At least in his mind there is some sort of distinction to be drawn between "military force" and "war."  I wonder, however, whether he (or any progressive espousing such ideas) could give any sort of delineation to distinguish the two concepts.  Based on this discussion the only distinction seems to be "war is what Republicans/conservatives do and is wrong" but "Democrats/progressives legitimately use military force and are right to do so."  I'd venture to say that the innocent Libyans, Yemenis, and other various peoples that we have killed with our bombs fail to see the difference between bombs dropped as part of a bad, Republican war and bombs dropped as part of a good, Democratic "kinetic military action."

Perhaps the distinguishing factor (for him, at least) is that the President (without approval from anyone) may use "military force" in order to defend others (as when he says "Libya was not for our interests but for the Libyan people," not that I concede the point that that was really what President Obama accomplished or even wanted to do in the first place), but that the President may not make "war" to defend what he believes to be U.S. interests (although it's unclear whether he thinks the Iraq AUMF was the constitutionally-permissible way to empower the President to go to war with Iraq).  I agree with him that the case for war against Iraq was not only inadequate, but was also misleading (if not based on outright lies), but it just doesn't make sense to say that that war that was authorized by the Congress (the representatives of the American people) was illegitimate and the President's use of "military force" in Libya (which was not authorized by anyone and was, in fact, opposed by large segments of the American people) was entirely justified.

Interestingly, the idea that certain military powers lie exclusively within the province of the executive branch is not a new one.  The idea of the "unitary executive" (as it has been called) was extremely popular with one John Yoo. Yoo, of course, was the prominent member of the Office of Legal Counsel under President Bush who wrote memoranda justifying, among other things, unilateral, preemptive military action without Congress' permission and "enhanced interrogation techniques" (know to us mundanes as "torture").  If the Obama administration and its apologists are falling back on logic used by John Yoo to defend themselves I don't see how anyone can reasonably deny that Democrats and Republicans are really just different factions within a larger War Party.

It's no secret to the handful of people who have ever read this blog that I am not a conservative.  When I began blogging here (lo these many years ago) I was a conservative, but I no longer consider myself to be such.  Still, a good number of my friends and acquaintances described themselves as conservatives and from time to time one of them will say something that will strike me as funny, ironic, or downright frightening.  I thought some of these snippets might make for interesting fodder here (with names removed to protect the innocent, naturally).

I had such a moment not too long ago in discussing drug policy.  From previous posts here it should be clear that I am in favor of repealing drug laws and leaving behind the failed policy of prohibition.  Naturally, very few conservatives share that viewpoint (if, in fact, any do).  Still when I read the following sentence as part of that discussion, I was taken aback.  This is what was said

I happen to think that individuals owe society something. It's unacceptable for able-bodied individuals to sit around destroying their health and their lives and eventually becoming a burden on responsible people.

I've heard many arguments to justify drug prohibition, but this one was new for me.  For a self-described conservative who ostensibly values individual responsibility and rejects the collectivist notions of present-day liberal-progressives.  If you'd told me that Elizabeth Warren had said that, I probably would have believed you.  But no, it was said by someone who only a few weeks earlier joined the chorus of people who (correctly) pointed out the many fallacies of Elizabeth Warren's much-criticized assertion that "There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody."  I expect collectivist-type language from progressives, but I would also expect that conservatives who claim to prize individualism would know better.

That quote, however, pales in comparison to the one that followed it (by a different "pragmatic conservative").

I say test everybody all the time and watch the casual use drop like a rock. . . . Jail hard core addicts and offer them free sterilization before they reproduce kids they won't parent properly.

For someone who claims to be for limited government, these statements are truly astonishing.  Imagine the sheer volume of government intrusions that would be necessary to implement a plan of drug testing for everyone.  That's authoritarian in the extreme.  Suggesting that drug addicts be allowed out of prison only after undergoing forced sterilization is not only totalitarian but monstrous.

If these are the arguments that conservatives are going to continue to use to justify a U.S. drug policy that, by any objective measure, has been a complete failure, then I'm not sure I want anything to do with conservatives any more.

The following exchange took place at the Republican primary debate this past Saturday evening:

Scott Pelley: Speaker Gingrich, if I could just ask you the same question, as President of the United States, would you sign that death warrant for an American citizen overseas who you believe is a terrorist suspect?

Newt Gingrich: Well, he's not a terrorist suspect. He's a person who was found guilty under review of actively seeking the death of Americans.

Scott Pelley: Not-- not found guilty by a court, sir.

Newt Gingrich: He was found guilty by a panel that looked at it and reported to the president.

Scott Pelley: Well, that's ex-judicial. That's-- it's not--

Newt Gingrich: Let me-- let me-- let me tell you a story-- let me just tell you this.

Scott Pelley: --the rule of law.

Newt Gingrich: It is the rule of law. That is explicitly false. It is the rule of law.

Scott Pelley: No.

Newt Gingrich: If you engage in war against the United States, you are an enemy combatant. You have none of the civil liberties of the United States. You cannot go to court. Let me be-- let me be very clear about this. There are two levels. There's a huge gap here that-- that frankly far too many people get confused over. Civil defense, criminal defense, is a function of being within the American law. Waging war on the United States is outside criminal law. It is an act of war and should be dealt with as an act of war. And the correct thing in an act of war is to kill people who are trying to kill you.

For a guy that supposedly holds the title "policy wonk" for the GOP primary field, Newt seems to be blissfully ignorant of the actual language of the Constitution. He might be interested to know that Article III, section 3 says:

Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

In other words, Newt is completely wrong. The President cannot order the assassination of an American citizen because he and some secret "panel" acted as prosecutor, judge, and jury.  Maybe someone could send him a copy of the Constitution that contains that section?  Newt's seems to be missing a page or two.

I’ll begin with a disclaimer: drugs (the illegal kind) are bad. I do not use them nor would I recommend that anyone else use them. In fact, were anyone in the position of deciding whether to use drugs to ask me, my firm advice would be, “Don’t do it.” There are myriad reasons for deciding not to use drugs, but that’s not really the topic of this post. Before proceeding, however, I wanted to get that out of the way so the discussion can be focused on the true topic.

One conservative objection to radically changing U.S. drug policy is that to do so would be “surrendering the war on drugs.” I’m not particularly fond of the war metaphor, but others seem to be comfortable with it. If that metaphor means something, then there are some things that I think too many people have failed to consider in any depth.

First, wars have goals or victory conditions. For instance, the goals of the Second World War were to achieve the military defeat of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. If the German and Japanese militaries were still putting up significant resistance against Allied forces, anyone who said that the war was over would have been ignored and to say that the war had been won would have been seen as ridiculous. The reason for that seems clear enough: the goals of the war were easily discernible.

Can the same be said for the “War on Drugs”? What is the goal? Under what set of conditions can the United States declare victory? Do goals and victory conditions even exist for the “War on Drugs” in any meaningful sense?

I suppose one goal could be to reduce the consumption of certain types of drugs. While that sounds like a good start, the fact is that such a goal is too vague to be of much use. Which drugs should the government actively prevent people from acquiring or using? How much must consumption of the drugs in question be reduced? Is a certain percentage of usage allowable or is there no “victory” in the “War on Drugs” until consumption is reduced to zero?

Another question that must be asked in the context of war is whether the desired goal is achievable.  Continuing the World War II analogy, Hitler wanted to rule Europe and, eventually, Russia as well.  In theory, his goal was achievable.  Germany had a powerful military and was able to subjugate large portions of the European continent.  Given a different set of circumstances he might well have succeeded in defeating the United Kingdom and Soviet Russia as well.  Such was not to be, however, and Hitler should have seen that his goal of conquering the whole of Europe and Russia and large parts of Africa was not an achievable one.  As strong as the German military machine was, the reality was that what Hitler asked of it was simply too much.  The same mistake has been made by countless military leaders throughout history.

As far as the "War on Drugs" is concerned, its supporters need to ask "Is our goal an achievable one?"  In theory, perhaps it is possible to eliminate all drug use (I tend to doubt that's an achievable objective even in theory, but let's assume, for sake of argument, that it is).  The question then becomes "If the goal is theoretically achievable, how likely is it that we will succeed?"  Hitler's goal was achievable in theory, but given his circumstances, he should have seen that he was not likely to succeed.  The same is true for the "War on Drugs:" although it is theoretically possible that the current policy will achieve the elimination or substantial reduction in drug usage, based on the evidence we have so far, the only logical conclusion is that such a result is unlikely.

American drug policy has remained largely the same for the last four decades.  It is perfectly reasonable to ask what we have to show for the billions of dollars spent and countless lives lost.  The answer is: very little.  Drug usage rates are no lower now than they were forty years ago; in some instances, usage rates are higher.  If the goal was reduction or elimination of drug usage rates, don't the statistics show that that policy has failed?  Doesn't that prove that the goal is not an achievable one?

"Perhaps," someone might respond, "the goal is achievable, but the tactics currently being used to achieve that goal are not the most effective."  That's possible, I suppose, but I don't think it does anything to bolster the argument that the "War on Drugs" ought to be continued.  What are the current tactics being used to fight the "War on Drugs"?  The only options seem to be either (1) reduce the supply by attacking the production side of the equation or (2) reduce demand by arresting and prosecuting drug users.  We've tried increasing criminal penalties for possession with intent to distribute and the like, but that has done effectively nothing to reduce the supply of available drugs.  Increasing penalties for users and all of the government-sponsored anti-drug campaigns targeting children have not done much to reduce demand for drugs either.  What else is there to do?  Life sentences for all drug users?  Execute all drug dealers and producers?    Try getting those ideas past Congress or the Supreme Court.

Assuming enough people didn't consider those punishments grotesquely disproportionate to the offense to make them the law, even those penalties would present a whole host of practical problems.  Imprisoning drug users does not prevent them from having access to drugs.  Drug use in prisons is rampant in spite of the fact that smuggling prohibited items to prisoners carries a hefty penalty.  What if the United States could execute dealers and producers of drugs?  That would solve nothing either.  Those who go into the drug trade already know that they're putting their lives at risk.  They do it anyway because the illegality of the trade makes it too lucrative to pass up.  In the inner city (or rural Mexico) where the drug trade is too often the only chance for employment, the threat of capital punishment would not act as a significant deterrent.  Even after dealers, suppliers, and producers were executed there would always be someone else to take their places.

It's all good and well to raise the prospect of a change in tactics, but that only raises the question of "Change them to what, exactly?"  In fighting the "War on Drugs" the government has tried just about everything it can try.  Perhaps there are some slight tweaks here and there that could be implemented, but, in reality, those would only be variations on the same two tactics identified above: reduce supply and reduce demand.  Neither of those tactics has done anything to reach the goal of reduced drug consumption.

Finally, some object to decriminalization or legalization on the grounds that to do so would be to "surrender" in the "War on Drugs."  This objection seems to be borne out of little more than an emotional desire never to be on the losing side.  It also seems to imply that those who would discontinue fighting are cowardly.  In this particular case, continuing to fight a battle that is unwinnable is not courageous, it's foolish.  In 1854, Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote " Not tho' the soldier knew / Some one had blunder'd."  Just like the Light Brigade of the British cavalry charged into the teeth of Russian muskets and artillery at the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War to meet their deaths, so many men, women, and children have been sacrificed in the "War on Drugs" because someone has blundered.  After the charge of the Light Brigade French Marshal Pierre Bosquet said "C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre." ("It is magnificent, but it is not war.") He went on to say (though this portion is recounted less frequently): "C'est de la folie" — "it is madness."  I think that sums up the "War on Drugs" as well.  Its proponents see themselves and their cause as noble, magnificent even.  They are involved, so they believe, in a conflict not only to protect themselves, but to save drug users from their own bad choices.  They are wrong.  They are not fighting a noble war that will be remembered in verse; they have descended into madness.

Since President Nixon first declared a "War on Drugs" in 1971 the United States, like the Light Brigade, has charged with full abandon into the Valley of Death, in Tennyson's words.  The Light Brigade was fortunate to emerge from that rash endeavor with some survivors, but that was only because, at some point, someone had the sense to withdraw.  My fear is that no one who has any say over United States drug policy has enough sense to do the same before it is too late.

At Wednesday night’s Republican primary debate Congressman Ron Paul made a remark in response to a question regarding immigration and the proposed border fence that no other candidate made and that no candidate challenged. He pointed out that the problems the United States has at its border with Mexico are driven by the drug war. According to the Congressman “our drug laws are driving this.” Aside from the fact that the debate’s moderators cut off further discussion of the issue after the Congressman gave his answer, there’s another reason that no candidate could dispute or challenge Paul on that point: they know he’s right.

Trafficking in illegal drugs is as lucrative a profession as it is because of the illegality. Anyone who examines the facts objectively knows this to be true. Just like the Mafia did during the days of Prohibition, the Mexican drug cartels and their partners in the United States maintain their control over this lucrative business with intimidation, corruption, and violence. The Mexican cartels are equally if not more successful in their trade.

In my opinion, the moderators and candidates missed a tremendous opportunity to have a real discussion about our nation’s drug policy. Instead, they pretended not to hear or dismissed the issue as not worthy of discussion. There are many possible reasons for not engaging in discussion on that issue, but there is one reason that’s been proffered that I want to examine in a little further detail.

No one is going to talk about making major changes to drug policy in a Republican primary debate because the base of the party simply isn’t interested in having that discussion. Ron Paul, it is said, represents the fringe position on that issue and, therefore, spending time having an in-depth discussion of it is not useful. I can understand where that view comes from (though I don’t agree that that should make it completely off-limits as some would have), but I also think that that sort of attitude is demonstrably wrong.

As Doug Wead points out, “In 2008, 74% of the American people did not know what the Federal Reserve was. A poll last year showed that 74% now agreed with Dr. Paul that this institution should be accountable and it should be audited.” How did that happen? How did we go from a state of affairs in which three quarters of poll respondents did not even knowing there was such an institution as the Federal Reserve to one in which three quarters of them believe the Fed should be monitored and audited? The answer is obvious: Ron Paul talked about the issue whenever the opportunity presented itself. In 2008 the base of the Republican Party was not interested in the issue (nor did they even know there was an issue), so according to the rationale above, it would have been a waste of time to discuss the issue. Clearly that point of view was wrong when it came to the issue of oversight of the Federal Reserve. In fact, that’s exactly what was said by some in 2008 (and is still being said by some in 2012): “Monetary policy is too technical and boring to be worthy of discussion in a presidential primary.”

Some of the Republican field now seems to recognize the importance of the issue. Both Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney claimed during the debate that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s monetary policy was hurting the economy and said that he would have no place in their administration (Newt went as far as to say that he would fire Bernanke tomorrow, but unfortunately for Newt, the Chairman can only be removed “for cause” and as bad as Bernanke’s policy decisions have been, it’s highly unlikely that they would constitute good cause). It should be clear why candidates other than Paul are finally paying attention to monetary policy and the Fed: the base of the party cares about the issue. Granted, they have only decided to pay attention to it now that Paul has pushed it to the forefront, but, ultimately, I think the Congressman would be pleased that the issue is being discussed even if he doesn’t get the credit for drawing attention to it.

I say all that to say this: if Ron Paul had listened to the conventional wisdom that said “shut up and sit down” when it comes to monetary policy and the Fed, then the virtually unchecked and destructive power that the Fed wields over our money would still be a non-issue for most people. The Republican establishment should be thanking Ron Paul for sticking to his guns and daring to “bore” people with talk of monetary policy. He kept talking about it despite the fact that no one, at the time, seemed to care about the issue.

Turning back to the issue of the drug war, I think the same rationale applies. It’s not enough to say “the base doesn’t want to hear about it.” There are some things that the base doesn’t want to hear about because, frankly, they are uninformed. Having been a conservative Republican in the past, I can say with some degree of confidence that significant portions of the Republican base have not seriously considered that the war on drugs has been wrong from the start. They are uninformed on the issue (as I was) and it is primarily for that reason that they don’t want to hear about it now. They choose to remain uninformed because they are presently uninformed. Put simply, this is circular reasoning at its worst.

I suppose it should come as little surprise, then, that anyone who even suggests that drug policy requires some major adjustments is either a crank, a utopian with his head in the clouds, or (for those who seem unable to avoid ad hominem attacks) a pot head. Dismissing the issue is a mistake and I intend to discuss it at greater lengths in future posts.

Jordan Sekulow, the "Director of Policy and International Operations" for the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), says Congressman Ron Paul "just doesn't get it" when it comes to U.S. policy on Iran.  I'll lay out my reasons why I think Sekulow is the one who doesn't really "get" Iran in a moment, but Sekulow can't help but turn what should be nothing more than a policy disagreement into an opportunity to smear the Congressman with the oft-used and seldom-justified anti-Semitism brush.

Sekulow says that Paul is "so anti-Israel" and that his position on Iran is born out of "his kind of anti-Semitism and dislike of Jews."  I used to think that the Sekulows were capable of better than this, but I'm not so sure any more.  If Jordan and his father prefer ad hominem attacks to substantive discussions that's certainly their choice, but in so choosing all they are really doing is contributing to the tangled mess of a political landscape that has driven people into Ron Paul's open arms over the last several years.  Any rational discussion of the issue, I think, would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Ron Paul does not hate Jews.  Frankly, I don't think Sekulow is interested in that sort of a discussion.  Like the rest of the Republican establishment, he fears what a successful Ron Paul candidacy would mean for his own future.  So, rather than have a real discussion about an important issue, he chooses to short-circuit that discussion to undermine a political enemy.  Of course, perhaps it was foolish of me to expect an attempt at rational discourse from someone who is a spokesman for a group with a name like "Christian Leaders for a Nuclear Free-Iran."

Now, on to the more important issue of what should U.S. policy be regarding Iran.  First, I think it is important to dispense with some common lines of argument that, upon close examination, are not even valid, let alone compelling.

Many proponents of taking a hard line toward Iran are fond of citing Iran's supposed publicly-stated desire to "wipe Israel off the map."  At first glance, that sounds pretty damning for Iran.  It's disappointing that this line of argument still has to be debunked so long after the fact, but nevertheless, most people fail to consider some of the following facts.  The quote was first reported by the New York Times on October 26, 2005.  The first sentence of the story, written by NYT reporter Nazila Fathi, reads as follows: "Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told a group of students at an anti-Israel event on Wednesday that Israel 'must be wiped off the map' and that attacks by Palestinians would destroy it, the ISNA news agency reported."

The quote in the NYT was called out as a mistranslation from several corners, including the Guardian and Juan Cole. As Jonathan Steele of the Guardian put it "The remarks are not out of context. They are wrong, pure and simple. Ahmadinejad never said them."  Rather, as Juan Cole pointed out Ahmadinejad "quoted an old saying of Ayatollah Khomeini calling for ‘this occupation regime over Jerusalem' to 'vanish from the page of time.’"  "Wiping off the map" is an English idiom with no Persian equivalent.  Neither Ahmadinejad nor Khomeini was making a military threat: they were calling for regime change.

When all of this was pointed out, the New York Times (naturally, perhaps) doubled-down and stood by the mistranslation.  Although it's commendable that someone at the NYT went back to take a closer look, Steele again pointed out that they didn't get it quite right.  He notes: "The version of the October 26 2005 speech put out by the Middle East Media Research Institute, based on the Farsi text released by the official Iranian Students News Agency, says: 'This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history.'"  Lest anyone dismiss MEMRI's translation as too friendly to Iran, Steele writes that the organization "is headed by a former Israeli military intelligence officer and has sometimes been attacked for alleged distortion of Farsi and Arabic quotations for the benefit of Israeli foreign policy."

Another crucial point is that in the original interview Ahmadinejad compared the elimination of "the regime occupying Jerusalem" with the fall of the Shah's regime in Iran.  Ahmadinejad was among those who opposed the Shah in the 1970s and it should be self-evident that his opposition to that regime is not evidence that he "favour[ed] Iran's removal from the page of time" as Steele puts it.  Juan Cole summed the issue up well: "I am entirely aware that Ahmadinejad is hostile to Israel. The question is whether his intentions and capabilities would lead to a military attack, and whether therefore pre-emptive warfare is prescribed. I am saying no, and the boring philology is part of the reason for the no."

One fact that often gets lost in discussions of the Middle East, Islamism, Iran, terrorism, and the like is the divisions that exist in Islam.  There are two major schools of thought in Islam: Sunnis and Shias (or Shi'ites).  Sunnis form the largest denomination of Muslims while Shi'ites make up anywhere from 10-20% of the total Muslim population of the world (depending on which estimates you look at).  Nearly half of those who follow the Shia school of thought live in Iran and somewhere in the neighborhood of 90% of the population of Iran is officially Shia.

Why does any of that matter?  It matters because the Muslim radicals (against whom we are at war according to the Rick Santorums of the world) are mostly Sunnis, not Shia.  Not only that, but most of the radicals come from smaller sects within Sunni Islam, namely Salafism, Wahabbism, and Qutbism.  Although the differences between Sunni and Shia arise largely over a historical dispute over whether the prophet Muhammad intended to leave a successor, the rift between the schools was enough of a reason for radicals like Al Qaeda to identify Shias as one of the principal enemies of Islam along with America and Israel.  Hezbollah, the radical Shia militant group, has been condemned or classified as a terrorist organization by a number of Sunni Muslim nations, including Saudi Arabia, birthplace of Osama bin Laden.  It should be clear, then that it is a mistake to lump all Muslims together without regard for the fact that Sunni and Shia are quite often at odds over who to oppose and how to oppose them.

Even if Rick Santorum is to be believed when he says that we are at war with radical Islam, that's not the whole picture.  Those who have attacked us are a small sect within one school of thought of Islam.  To say or imply that Iran is at the center of that movement is simply not supported by the facts.  Iran undoubtedly does some bad things (their support of Hezbollah being the most obvious example), but it does not follow from that fact that Iran is, in Santorum's words, "an existential threat" to the United States.

The only reason Iran is able to harm any Americans is because we have sent Americans over there.  Despite the eye-rolling from the "fair and balanced" Fox News moderators of the debate in Iowa last week, what Ron Paul said is 100% true: "Iran does not have an air force that can come here. They can’t even make enough gasoline for themselves." Rick Santorum and the field of GOP primary contenders (with the sole exception of Paul) are gearing up for a war with Iran.  That much should now be clear.

And what of Iran's nuclear ambitions?  Well, for starters, according to our own intelligence reports, Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program by 2007.  That report later turned out to be overblown and had been misinterpreted in the media, but it's significant because it shows the shortcomings of U.S. intelligence efforts on this issue.  For sake of argument, let's assume both that Iran wants a nuclear weapon and that they will be capable of producing one within the next decade.  Even if the former is certain, the latter is up for debate.  But as I said, for this discussion, I'll assume that both are true.

Writing in the Mediterranean Quarterly in 2007, Ted Galen Carpenter laid out the issue of Iran and nuclear weapons and what the response of the United States should be (and did it quite well, I think).  Some of the information is no longer relevant or is outdated.  For instance, with the ouster of the Mubarak regime in Egypt earlier this year it's much harder to gauge what nuclear ambitions still exist in Egypt if, in fact, any still exist at all.  For the most part, however, I think Carpenter's analysis remains valid.

Carpenter identifies three possible avenues of responding to Iran's efforts to develop nuclear weapons: (1) preventative air strikes, (2) deterrence and containment, or (3) a "grand bargain" with Iran.  The vast majority of the GOP establishment only sees the first of those things as a viable foreign policy option.  Sanctions of the sort often mentioned are, of course, only a precursor to war (leaving aside, for the moment, the question of whether the sanctions themselves are acts of war).  For the reasons that Carpenter points out, such a policy is not just impractical but would very likely be counterproductive.  In his analysis, Carpenter spends relatively little time on the financial catastrophe that such a war with Iran would precipitate (and since the article was written at the tail end of the now-burst financial boom created by the housing bubble, I suppose I can excuse such an omission).

Carpenter writes, regarding practical problems with such a policy: "There are numerous nuclear-related sites in Iran — many of which are in or near major population centers, maximizing the probable number of civilian casualties in an attack. Indeed, thousands of innocent Iranians would likely perish in a campaign of air strikes."  Even if those calling for military action against Iran are comfortable with the idea of "collateral damage" (and given the scant attention paid to the cost to innocent lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, it seems reasonable to assume that the same would be true of a conflict with Iran), the fact remains that U.S. intelligence on Iran's nuclear ambitions is incomplete at best.  That is to say, even if we launch numerous airstrikes there is no guarantee that we can stop the Iranian nuclear program prior to having to fight a full scale war.  The danger of trying to militarily destroy Iran's nuclear program and failing should be obvious.

Carpenter then cites an article by Charles Krauthammer that appeared in the Washington Post in 2006.  Krauthammer wrote the article in support of military action against Iran, but even he had to admit that moving against Iran in that way would have devastating consequences for the United States and for the world.  Krauthammer predicted that the price of oil would skyrocket, triggering a global economic crisis “perhaps as deep as the one triggered by the Iranian revolution of 1979.”  Forty percent of the world's oil has to pass through the Straits of Hormuz, straits that Iran could easily seal off.  Naturally, the U.S. Navy could put an end to such a closure, but Krauthammer (again, a proponent of war with Iran) has to admit that reopening the Straits would come at "considerable cost."

Carpenter's analysis hits the nail on the head, but I won't regurgitate it all here.  The article really isn't that long and I wouldn't do it justice anyway, I'm sure.  The important part of that article is his discussion of the deterrence and containment avenue.  Some hybrid version of deterrence and the grand bargain approach are what I think Ron Paul is advocating.  Carpenter's article shows that such a position is neither irrational nor is it anti-Semitic.  He concludes that portion of the article by saying that "relying on deterrence is not an easy or comfortable course to advocate, but it is more realistic and less dangerous than preventive war."

Ron Paul and other noninterventionists are accused of being unrealistic or irrational.  Upon closer examination, however, it appears that the unrealistic position is the one that says the only path for the United States is to be belligerent toward Iran.  That policy choice can only end in war.  It will be a war that we do not have to fight, one that we cannot win without tremendous loss of life, and, in the end, one that we couldn't pay for even if we wanted to.  The foreign policy of Jordan Sekulow and Rick Santorum (as well as the rest of the Republican candidates for President) leads to destruction.  I can only hope that more Republican primary voters come to grips with that fact as soon as possible.

Although the title of this post may sound preposterous or too ambitious depending on your perspective, I think I can show that, in fact, it is not ridiculous.  If progressives really thought through the implications of their own basic beliefs they would be likely to conclude that they should be libertarians (for the most part, I think the same is true of conservatives).

To show what I mean, I am going to post a "modified true-false" quiz (relying heavily on some of the writing of Hans-Hermann Hoppe, a glance into which Stephan Kinsella gives here).

Respond to each statement as either true or false.  If the statement is "false" explain why.

1.  True or false?  The only legitimate way to convince someone of the truth of an idea is in the course of argumentation/discussion (in other words, "convincing" someone of the truth of an idea through violence/coercion is unjustifiable).

2.  True or false?  In order to engage in argumentation, a person must recognize both (a) other people's exclusive right of ownership/control over their bodies and (b) one's corresponding exclusive right of ownership/control over his own body (we'll call this the "right of self ownership").

3.  True or false?  No one is justified in using or threatening to use physical violence against another person's body so long as that other person does not use his body to harm someone else (we'll call this the "principle of nonaggression").

4.  True or false?  People can justifiably acquire a right of ownership/control over things other than their own bodies because otherwise human life would cease to exist (for example, if one has no property right beyond his own body even gathering the necessary food to sustain himself would not be within his rights).

5.  True or false?  Anyone claiming a right of property in something other than his own body is only justified in that claim if it is consistent both with the principle of nonaggression and the principle of self ownership.

6.  True or false?  Claiming ownership by verbal declaration is incompatible with the principle of self ownership because by saying that one can acquire property by declaration, that same person presupposes his "right of exclusive control over his body as his own instrument of saying anything" in the first place (quotation borrowed from Hoppe).

7.  True or false?  Claiming ownership by verbal declaration is incompatible with the principle of nonaggression because such a claim would imply a right to declare oneself the own of another person's body (a right which could only be exercised through aggression).

8.  True or false?  Because a person can do with his body whatever he pleases so long as he does not invade the right of self-ownership of anyone else (the nonaggression principle), it follows that a person can make use of other scarce things so long as those things are still in a natural, unowned state, i.e., no one has acquired a right of ownership over them (we'll call this "original appropriation").

It should be obvious that I think each of the above is a true statement and logically follows from the statements above it.  I could continue with this little "quiz" (and probably will at some point), but I think these relatively few questions should be more than enough to chew on for now.  Hoppe's "Argumentation Ethics" approach can be complicated, but when you go through it step by step, I think it makes sense.  I sincerely doubt that this brief exercise will convince any progressives (or conservatives) to adopt libertarianism overnight, but at the very least I think these questions and argumentation ethics should give them something to thing about for a while.

The title of this post is a bit misleading.  Sorry.  I am in the midst of reading Hans-Hermann Hoppe's book of the same title (which, incidentally, is available to read for free here).  I hope to do some posts related to the topics Hoppe covers, but those will have to come later.

In the meantime, check out this piece by Jeffrey Tucker on Google+, Google's latest attempt to enter the social networking market.

This will be a bit of a change of pace from my usual fare, but it's a topic that interests me enough that I decided to post about it.

Timothy Keller founded and now leads Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan.  I was first introduced to him by the book, The Reason for God.  That book, even if not a comprehensive treatment of Christian apologetics, was an enjoyable read and offered some different ways of answering common objections to the Christian faith.  Last week, I checked out from the local library (and read in its entirety) the short work The Prodigal God.  In it, Keller lays out an interpretation of the parable of the prodigal son (which Keller says is better called the parable of the two sons) that would probably be a novel one for most readers.  Nevertheless, his exposition of the well-known parable is grounded in Scripture and offers Christians a much-needed new look at Jesus' teaching.  I recommend both of those books very highly.

At the same time that I checked out The Prodigal God I also checked out Generous Justice: How God's Grace Makes Us Just, also by Timothy Keller.  The Introduction, titled "Why Write This Book," does an excellent job of doing just what its title says.  He ends the introduction thus:

This book, then, is both for believers who find the Bible a trustworthy guide and for those who wonder if Christianity is a positive influence.  I want the orthodox to see how central to the Scripture's message is justice for the poor and marginalized.  I also want to challenge those who do not believe in Christianity to see the Bible not as a repressive text, but as the basis for the modern understanding of human rights.

Chapter 1, "What is Doing Justice?" likewise does, I think, an excellent job laying out from Scripture the Biblical concept of justice.  Keller begins the chapter (which can be read on his website here) by citing Micah 6:8: "And what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?"  That struck me because it's a verse that I have printed out and is sitting on my desk in front of me right now as I type this.  Keller gets right to the point of answering the question posed in the chapter's title by offering two examples of individuals that he knows (or knew).  Keller defines the Biblical concept of doing justice as being "concerned about the most vulnerable, poor, and marginalized members of our society, and . . . ma[king] long-term personal sacrifices in order to serve their interests, needs, and cause"

Keller points out that the idea of a deity who was “a father to the fatherless, a defender of widows” (Psalm 68:4–5) was a unique concept in the ancient world.  Keller cites Sri Lankan scholar Vinoth Ramachandra:

He writes that in virtually all the ancient cultures of the world, the power of the gods was channeled through and identified with the elites of society, the kings, priests, and military captains, not the outcasts. To oppose the leaders of society, then, was to oppose the gods. “But here, in Israel’s rival vision,” it is not high-ranking males but “the orphan, the widow, and the stranger” with whom Yahweh takes his stand. His power is exercised in history for their empowerment.”

Keller does an adequate job making the case that God is concerned with the plight of the poor (he cites Psalm 146:7–9; Deuteronomy 10:17–18; Jeremiah 22:3 and several other passages).

Toward the end of the chapter, Keller gets to where it seems he thinks the rubber meets the road:

When these two words, tzadeqah and mishpat, are tied together, as they are over three dozen times, the English expression that best conveys the meaning is “social justice.”  It is an illuminating exercise to find texts where the words are paired and to then to translate the text using the term “social justice.” Here are just two:

The Lord loves social justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love.
Psalms 33:5

And

This is what the LORD says: “Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness and social justice on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the LORD.
Jeremiah 9:23–24

In the final section of the chapter, "Justice Includes Generosity" Keller makes the case (a good one, I think) that generosity to the poor and disadvantaged is not an optional activity for Christians.  The English word "charity," Keller says, "conveys a good but optional activity." He concludes: "But this view does not fit in with the strength or balance of the Biblical teaching."

Chapter 2, "Justice and the Old Testament," is where, in my opinion, Keller's arguments start to weaken.  Keller addresses a potential problem head on in the first few sections of the chapter: "Are the laws of the Old Testament binding on Christians today?"  As to the ceremonial laws, Keller concludes that "the basic principles remain valid."  He points out that "the principle of offering God sacrifices still remains in force, though changed by Christ's work."  We are now called upon, Keller points out, to "offer God our entire lives as sacrifices (Romans 12:1-2)."  So far so good.

Next Keller considers "Christians and the Civil Law of Moses" which he says are the primary focus of the chapter.  Keller points out that in the Old Testament "believers comprised a single nation-state" but that Christians now "do not constitute a theocratic kingdom-state."  Keller continues in this vein to say that although "believers are still a 'covenant community,' a people who are bound together to obey God's will, the church is not the state."  (emphasis mine).  As far as Keller's conclusion in this section goes, I can't really disagree.  He says that although the civil laws of Moses are not binding on Christians they still retain "some abiding validity."  This makes sense because when we read in Deuteronomy that "the LORD your God . . . defends the case [mishpat] of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing" we know for certain that the God who inspired those words is exactly the same today as He was those many thousands of years ago.

To give examples of the sort of "abiding validity" that he is talking about, Keller brings up the examples of the law of release (Deuteronomy 15:1-2), the law of gleaning, (Leviticus 19:9-10; 23:22), the law of tithing ("every third year the tithes were put in public storehouses so that the poor and 'the aliens, the fatherless, and the widows' would receive them" (Deuteronomy 14:29)), and the year of Jubilee (Deuteronomy 15:1-18).

Under the heading "Justice and Our Political Categories" and the next section "What Causes Poverty?" Keller expands his argument.  This is where he gets himself into trouble.  Keller identifies the "problem" with the idea of social justice with a quotation from Kevin DeYoung:

While the general principle--help the poor, don't harm them--is abundantly and repeatedly clear in Scripture, the application of the principle is less so.  For example, does a passage like Isaiah 58 support state-sponsored redistribution efforts?  Christians can and do argue for this, but this text certainly doesn't require this solution to poverty.

Keller suggests that the passages to which he referred earlier answer the question posed by DeYoung with a "yes."  He points out that Israel distributed resources to the poor.  For all the effort he put into pointing out that the church is not a theocratic nation-state like Israel (and, indeed, he mentions the fact again in this section), Keller doesn't make much of an effort to say how the principle of that passage ought to be applied "with care."

The gleaning laws, Keller says, provide a good example of a principle to be applied by modern business owners.  According to Keller, the gleaning laws reveal to us that "God did not want [landowners] to squeeze every cent of profit out of the land, and then think that by giving to charity they were doing all they could for general community welfare."  Keller thinks this principle applies with full force to modern business owners.  They should not, Keller says, "squeeze every penny of profit out of their businesses for themselves by charging the highest possible fees and prices to customers and paying the lowest possible wages to workers.  Instead, they should be willing to pay higher wages and charge lower prices that in effect share corporate profits with employees and customers, with the community around them."

That sounds like a reasonable application of that passage, but Keller makes a fatal error.  It appears Keller has bought into what might be called the "myth of the just price."  This is the idea that for every good or service there is some  objectively reasonable and morally fair price above which sellers ought not to depart and below which buyers ought not expect to get a "steal."  This idea has been thoroughly debunked by Laurence M. Vance in his 2008 article for the Mises Institute, The Myth of the Just Price.  Business owners charge the price that the market dictates for their products; any ill-advised variation in either direction can result in the failure of their business.  The same is true for wages.  I won't summarize Vance' article here, but I think it soundly refutes the idea put forward by Keller here that prices and wage rates are solely a function of the avarice or generosity of the business owner or employer.  There are multiple factors at play and Keller's oversimplification does not help advance his argument.

To his credit, Keller points out that neither the typical liberal or conservative political framework really fits with the Biblical model.  He argues that the Biblical laws challenge both ends of the collectivist-individualist spectrum.

On the heels of that conclusion, however, Keller fouls up again in writing about what the Bible has to say about the causes of poverty.  "[T]he causes of poverty as put forth in the Bible are remarkably balanced." according to Keller.  Unfortunately, the passages Keller cites do not quite support his conclusion when read in context.

Keller cites as one Biblical cause of poverty "oppression, which includes a judicial system weighted in favor of the powerful (Leviticus 19:15)."  That verse says: "Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly."  Lacking from that verse (or any of the surrounding passage) is any suggestion that oppression is the cause of poverty (although in some cases it could be).  Oppression is more likely to follow the poor than it is to create them. Keller also cites to Exodus 22:25-27, Jeremiah 22:13, and James 5:1-6 to bolster his points that "loans with excessive interest" and "unjustly low wages" are also causes of poverty.  Those arguments fail for the same reasons mentioned above.

In the very next sentence, however, are the citations of Scripture in which I think Keller most misread the passages.  Keller writes that "Ultimately, however, the prophets blame the rich when extremes of wealth and poverty in society appear."  He cites to support this proposition Amos 5:11-12, Ezekiel 22:29, Micah 2:2, and Isaiah 5:8.  I won't reproduce those passages in full here, but if you read them for yourself I think you'll see what I saw: the prophets don't really blame the wealthy for causing the poverty so much as they blame them for taking advantage of the situation.  That's certainly something that ought to be rebuked, but it's not quite the point Keller was trying to make.  Frankly, given how insightful so much of his other writing is, I'm surprised to see him doing something as careless as this.

Skipping ahead to chapter 6 (so as to keep what was intended to be a short overview from growing too long), Keller makes what I consider a surprising statement.  He writes "There is no such thing as a neutral, culture-free way to do anything. . . . [Different cultures] all have distinct approaches to things like fact-finding, authority, persuasion, times frames, ratification of agreements and so on. . . . [I]f you think you can craft a culture-free way to make decisions as a group, you are very naive."  Given some of the great apologetics writing that Keller did in The Reason for God, these statements are jolting.  I'm sure Keller would soundly refute the suggestions made by relativists that truth is a cultural concept with not objective reality, but that is essentially the same position that he adopts here.  There might very well be different methods of decision-making, but ultimately one way has to be the right way.  It holds that position as the right way not because of the culture that adopted it but because it is right or true.  I'm baffled as to why Keller would make such statements that seem to be born out of relativism.

In the next chapter Keller makes what I think is a valid point about "Doing Justice in the Public Square," the title of the chapter.

Biblical understanding of justice is not rooted in any one of these [theories, i.e., virtue, rights, or the common good], but in the character and being of God himself.  This means that no current political framework can fully convey the comprehensive Biblical vision of justice, and Christians should never identify too closely with a particular political party or philosophy.

Too often, I think, Christians are willing (whether consciously or not) to "outsource" the job of thinking about how to do justice to politicians.  In the United States this typically seems to take the form of supporting one or the other of the two major political parties.  As Keller correctly points out, that is a mistake.  Neither of the two major political parties lines up fully with God's idea of justice.  Christians need to be more willing to ditch both Democrats and Republicans if they're serious about justice.

Finally, near the end of chapter 7, Keller makes the argument that if justice is to be done, we must jettison the idea that religion and moral beliefs have no place in the public square.  Unless we can talk about our "real differences, we simply make power plays to weaken our opponents, not persuade them."  Keller says that an important American political figure seems to agree with that viewpoint and cites one of that figure's statements:

Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering the public square.  Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, William Jennings Bryan, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King--indeed the majority of great reformers in American history--were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause.  So to say that men and women should not inject their "personal morality" into public policy debates is a practical absurdity.  Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

How many of you would have guessed that the quote above was from Barack Obama? I certainly wouldn't have. I can't say that I totally agree with Keller or Obama on this issue because they're talking about using the coercive power of government to impose their viewpoints.  I will agree, however, that arguments from morality ought not to be off limits altogether.

I think Keller, as usual, did a great job laying out the Biblical principles of the underlying topic.  He lays out the Biblical concept of justice in a way that, perhaps, will challenge many Christians in their thinking on that subject.  In that respect the book is excellent.

Where Keller falls short is in the application of those concepts in modern, American society.  Although Keller doesn't state it explicitly, I think the implication is pretty clear that he believes Christians should work through government in order to further the cause of justice.  Perhaps it is a subject for another book in itself, but I don't think Keller makes a good case for why he believes that Christians may work through government to achieve these objectives.  Many people might treat that topic as a foregone conclusion, but the same could be said for the way that people viewed the parable of the prodigal son that was the topic of another of Keller's books.  I think the question of what involvement Christians ought to have with government is one that deserves deeper treatment than Keller gives it here and I'm sure that if he had decided to take it up, he would have given it the thought it deserved.  That he chose not to do so is a bit of a disappointment, but perhaps Keller will go down that road in the future.

With a title like that, I'm sure no one would want to miss out on reading this post over at the Mises Institute's blog.  A teaser:

On December 1, 2010, Ozimals filed with Linden a [Digital Millennium Copyright Act] Takedown Notification pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3). The Notification sought, among other things, the removal from Second Life of Amaretto’s virtual “food” and “water.” Had the takedown occurred, the virtual horses would have “died” from “starvation” and/or “thirst” within 72 hours.

Enjoy!

"Justice has been done."

That line from President Obama's speech announcing the death of Osama bin Laden was blazoned across the front pages of newspapers across the country yesterday.  Given the countless deaths and untold destruction over which bin Laden presided, I think there's little doubt that the man who was, perhaps, the greatest mass murderer in at least a generation deserved to die for what he did.

The reaction to the news of his death was mixed; some celebrated in the streets while others didn't seem able to conjure up emotions of any sort.  After hearing the story on the radio on the way to work yesterday, the question that came up in my mind almost immediately was "What should my reaction to his death be?"  More importantly, what should my reaction as a Christian be to his death?

I was fortunate to come across some verses that seem to provide an answer (or at least the beginnings of one).  The first verse I happened across was Proverbs 24:17: "Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles."  (ESV).  The second was Ezekiel 33:11: "Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live." (NIV).  The first passage is definitely helpful, but I don't think God could have made it much more clear than He did in the Ezekiel passage.  If God Himself finds no cause for joy in the demise of the wicked, what right can I possibly claim to do so?

Osama bin Laden was, by all reliable accounts, a murderer; for that he justly deserved to die. God is every bit as just as He is loving and forgiving and the just penalty for murder is death.  Murder is claiming the right to destroy the life of a being that God created in His own image; there could hardly be a more direct affront to God's authority.  That bin Laden deserved to die, however, does not mean that his death, in itself, ought to be a source of joy for Christians.  It may be a subtle distinction between relief at justice being done and happiness at the death of a murderer, but I think it's an important distinction to make.  If God can make the distinction (as the Ezekiel passage shows that He does) shouldn't we at least attempt to do the same?

An objection to anarchism has often been posed thus: "There can never be a society based on the principle of nonaggression.  Not everyone agrees on the principle of nonaggression, and therefore there cannot be a truly voluntary society because there is no means of forcing those who do not accept the principle of nonaggression to abide by it."  There are at least a couple problems with this objection and I will deal with them in this post.

The first problem is the implication that those who abide by the nonaggression principle (NAP) are left without any recourse against those who violate the NAP.  That is an unfortunate mischaracterization of the NAP.  Nonaggression disapproves of the unjustified initiation of violence against the person or property of another.  Once a person has aggressed against someone else, the victim is well within the bounds of the NAP to take action against the initial aggressor.  Only a pacifist would disapprove of that sort of self defense.  It's far from true, however, that all libertarians are pacifists (although as Jeff Riggenbach points out, all pacifists are libertarians regardless of whether they realize it).

The other problem is the assumption that without the state, i.e. "orders from above," there can be no order at all.  This assumption is just as incorrect as the first.  Spontaneous order is the idea that order (i.e. rules for organizing society) develops from the voluntary interactions of individuals; the state is not a prerequisite to an orderly society.

This is by no means a novel concept.  In fact, most high school economics or history courses probably cover the topic (even if not by that name).  Although the idea was prominent with writers of the 18th century Scottish enlightenment it's most famous iteration has probably been in Adam Smith's reference to the "invisible hand."  Each individual, Smith tells us, working for his own individual benefit (with little or no thought for the betterment of society in general) "is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention."  In "The Tradition of Spontaneous Order" Norman Barry catalogues the development of the concept from the Scholastics of the Middle Ages on up through modern economists such as Carl Menger and F.A. Hayek.

A relatively recent book (which I was assigned to read as part of a law school property law curriculum) has been devoted to the subject: Order Without Law: How Neighbors Settle Disputes by Robert Ellickson.  In the book, Ellickson describes various disputes arising between residents of Shasta County, California.  Most of the disputes he encountered involved stray cattle wandering onto adjoining properties or out onto the roads.  In the majority of cases, neighbors resolved their disputes without resorting to the legal system (which in many cases did not adequately resolve their problems).  In other words, a spontaneous order developed by which cattle owners and land owners came to know what to expect of each other and they acted, for the most part, accordingly.  No organization dictated to them what to do and yet they worked out a solution among themselves.

Examples of spontaneous order are more plentiful than one might initially think.  Writing for Reason, John Stossel uses the example of a skating rink:

You are our Ruler. An entrepreneur tells you he wants to create something he calls a "skating rink." Young and old will strap blades to their feet and speed through an oval arena, weaving patterns as moods strike them.

You'd probably say, "We need regulation—skating stoplights, speed limits, turn signals—and a rink director to police the skaters. You can't expect skaters to navigate the rink on their own."

And yet they do. They spontaneously create their own order.

 

Forming lines at the fast food checkout counter is another example.  In many such restaurants (Chick-fil-a comes to mind) there are often no established lines, no cordon's directing customers where to wait.  Nevertheless almost as a rule people seem to be able to get up to the register in the proper order and very few people seem to have complaints.  Jane Jacobs points out in her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities that (as summarized here) well-functioning cities are products of individuals looking out for their own interests.  Centrally planned cities, according to Jacobs, with their strict zoning laws are the ones with deserted (and dangerous) streets.

One of the best proofs of this concept is, perhaps, the example discussed by T.P.Quinn in his column for the Mises Institute's website "The Praxeology and Ethics of Traffic Lights."  Turning off the traffic lights at a busy city intersection?  Surely that is a recipe for disaster!  Watch the video here to get the basic idea of Quinn's column.  Not only did people adapt to the  absence of traffic lights quite well, but traffic flowed through the intersection more efficiently than it did before.  According to some pedestrians who frequent the area, their safety in crossings increase as well.  The experiment at that intersection was eventually made permanent when it became clear that pedestrian safety did not suffer and traffic flow was much better.

All of these examples simply go to show that human beings do not require orders from above to make society work.  At least in the case of traffic lights, there's significant evidence that state-imposed "order" actually makes things worse.  The drivers using the intersection adhered to the new spontaneous order out of, one would assume, mostly selfish means e.g., "I'm going to proceed slowly through this intersection because that's how I expect others to act toward me."  Granted, not everyone will abide by the established order in every case: people will proceed unsafely into an intersection even if the light is red.

I think it's reasonable to assume that the same would hold true with respect to the NAP.  The vast majority of people are going to abide by it, if for no other reason, because they selfishly want others to observe it when dealing with them.  If, however, a society accepts the NAP as an ordering principle it's not inconceivable that just as many people who choose to abide by the state-imposed social order will choose to abide by spontaneously-generated order.

I really do plan to put up a post about spontaneous order; I've actually started writing it already.  What with getting busy at work, at the house, and church, there just hasn't been time to do that post and do it well.

In the mean time, Justin Raimondo and Glenn Greenwald have each done some excellent writing on the United States' involvement in Libya.  You can read those columns here and here.

The case is Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett (No. 10-238).

From SCOTUBblog.com:

Plain English Issue: Whether the First Amendment prohibits a state from giving additional money to a candidate who accepts state funding for her campaign whenever: (a) an independent group spends more than a certain amount campaigning against the candidate; or (b) the candidate's opponent refuses public funding and spends more than a certain amount on the campaign.

The United States District Court for the District of Arizona which initially heard the case held that the matching funds provision of Arizona law violated the First Amendment.  The Ninth Circuit reversed that holding, finding that the provision "survives intermediate scrutiny because it bears a substantial relation to the State’s important interest in reducing [i]quid pro quo[/i] political corruption."  The Court of Appeals wanted to sent the case back to the district court so that the lower court could address plaintiffs' equal protection claim (a claim that is not presented in the Supreme Court).

The Ninth Circuit began by citing several instances of political corruption in Arizona including the 1988 indictment and subsequent impeachment of Governor Evan Mecham, the Savings and Loan/Charles Keating Scandal, and the 1991 AzScam sting operation.  In 1998, after a string of scandals, Arizona voters approved the law at issue, the Citizens Clean Elections Act, as an initiative measure (although the Court also noted that Arizona instituted limitations on individual contributions to candidates more than a decade earlier).

Since 2002, between fifty-two percent and sixty-seven percent of candidates for state office during general elections have chosen to participate in the Act’s public funding program.  Plaintiffs contend that matching funds have dampened overall campaign spending in Arizona. It is  undisputed, however, that overall campaign spending in Arizona has increased since the Act’s passage.

Plaintiffs also allege that matching funds have specifically deterred them from engaging in political expression through monetary expenditures. They argue that the fear of triggering matching funds causes privately-funded candidates to refrain from or delay raising and spending money in support of their campaigns. They contend that matching funds burden the speech of independent expenditure committees by causing them to delay making independent expenditures in order to avoid triggering matching funds until later in the campaign, when the publicly-financed candidate will have less time to use them, in an attempt to minimize the competitive benefit of the matching funds to the publicly-financed candidate.

The opinion then cites testimony given by some of the plaintiffs including several who ran for the House of Representatives, Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC, and the Arizona Taxpayers Action Committee.  Then follows that Court's analysis:

We must, therefore, engage in a two-step inquiry. First, we determine whether the type of speech the law affects is fully protected by the First Amendment. Next, we determine the type of burden, if any, that the law places on that speech. Laws that place severe burdens on fully protected speech are subject to strict scrutiny. Laws that “place[ ] only a minimal burden on fully protected . . . freedoms” or that apply to “speech and associational freedoms [that] are not fully protected by the First Amendment” receive intermediate scrutiny.

The Court notes that under [i]Buckley v. Valeo[/i], "the Supreme Court’s landmark case on the constitutionality of campaign finance laws under the First Amendment," campaign [i]contributions[/i] are [i]not[/i] fully protected speech, but campaign [i]expenditures[/i] are fully protected speech.  According to the Court "a law that has a hybrid effect on both contributions and expenditures is interpreted as though it affects fully protected speech."  The next step in the Court's analysis was to determine what kind of burden the statute imposes on the First Amendment: a heavy burden will lead to the application of strict scrutiny, a lesser burden only intermediate scrutiny.

Plaintiffs urge us to adopt the rationale of the district court and conclude that, under the logic of [i]Davis[/i], they have “established a cognizable burden” under the First Amendment. The district court reasoned that “[i[b][/b]]f the mere [i]potential[/i] for your opponent to raise additional funds is a substantial burden, the granting of additional funds to your opponent must also be a burden.” We disagree. As discussed below, we conclude that [i]Davis[/i] is easily and properly distinguished from the case at bench.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on March 28.  Briefs and other documents can be found here at SCOTUSblog's case file page.