Democratic Hypocrisy on Deficit Reduction

As Republicans will vote to repeal ObamaCare in the House of Representatives this week, Democrats are condemning the measure as fiscally irresponsible. Repealing their health care reform bill, liberals say, would add some $230 billion to the federal deficit over the next decade.

The numbers come from the Congressional Budget Office and while some Republicans dispute them, I don't really care. For a decent and concise summary, I recommend this blog post though.

What matters are two things:

1) During Speaker Nancy Pelosi's tenure (2006-2010), Democrats have almost doubled the national debt, running trillion dollar deficits each year. Now they're worried about deficit spending? I doubt it.

2) The notion that Republicans should favor any measure that reduces the deficit and oppose any measure that increases it is nonsense. Republicans have reinvented themselves as fiscal conservatives but fiscal conservatism is not an end in itself. It stems from principle: the principle that government should be limited and people free.

Even if repealing ObamaCare increases the deficit, Republicans should favor it because the law infringes on individual liberties and expands the role of government in an industry that is already far too heavily regulated.

Nanny State At Work in San Francisco

The city of San Francisco is banning toys from McDonald's happy meals. It's so preposterous that really the only thing to do is make fun of it. Which The Daily Show does best. Watch.

California Court Rules Texts Can Be Searched Without Warrant

From the AP wire:

The California Supreme Court ruled Monday that police do not need a warrant to search a cell phone carried by someone under arrest.

The state court ruled 5-2 that US Supreme Court precedent affirms that police can search items found on defendants when they are arrested.

"Items," yes, to make sure they aren't carrying weapons or have illegal substances on them. Reading a person's text messages is no different from reading a person's mail. Policemen shouldn't be able to do that arbitrarily.

Fallacies of Net Neutrality

"As there is no real problem with the Internet, it's not surprising that some of our top minds have been working diligently on a solution."

David Harsanyi wrote that at Reason this May and argued against the proposition of mandating "neutrality" on the Web in the same article.

The problem, according to proponents of "net neutrality", is that large companies, Google and Microsoft for instance, would soon be able to afford faster delivery of their content at the disadvantage of smaller companies and startups. That is unfair, says the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and it is considering regulation that would ensure equal access for all Internet companies.

As Harsanyi puts it, that "makes as much sense as mandating that tricycle riders have the same rights and privileges as cars and trucks on our roads---highway neutrality."

The FCC promises it doesn't have any intention of controlling Internet content, only of making access fair. But empowered with the ability to regulate the flow of online traffic, it offers a semantic, not substantive, excuse for a power grab.

Peter Suderman, also with Reason, has similarly been arguing against net neutrality. He sees no reason to worry. "If anything, it seems like consumers would benefit from larger web providers being able to offer nifty, advanced services that a smaller competitor might not be able to afford."

He isn't convinced that the theoretical tiny competitor's inability to pay for speedier service is a concern serious enough to warrant regulatory meddling. "Think of how FedEx and UPS operate," he suggests. "Some customers pay to have their packages delivered to their destinations faster, yet no one thinks of this as harmful to those who choose regular speed delivery. Why should it be any different with ISPs [Internet service providers], which are essentially delivery networks for data rather than physical goods?"

Startups always face long odds against entrenched competitors, which is why the majority of new businesses fail relatively quickly. But the best startups compete through genuine innovation, not by taking advantage of government enforced business model barriers.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repealed

It's old news but I'd like to mention here the Republican and Independent Senators who voted to repeal the decade old ban that prohibits gay servicemen and -women from openly serving in the military.

Scott Brown of Massachusetts, John Ensign of Nevada, Mark Kirk of Illinois, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Olympia Snowe of Maine and George Voinovich of Ohio.

They stood up against what was a bigoted and wrong policy even if the majority of their fellow GOP legislators opposed repeal.

Jim Bunning of Kentucky, Judd Gregg of New Hampshireand Orrin Hatch of Utah didn't cast a vote.

Defending the Right to Smoke

Watch the video then click here to sign the petition.

Federal Judge Strikes Down ObamaCare

From the AP wire:

RICHMOND, Va. – A federal judge in Virginia has declared the Obama administration's health care reform law unconstitutional.

US District Judge Henry Hudson is the first judge to rule against the law, which has been upheld by two others in Virginia and Michigan.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli filed the lawsuit challenging the law's requirement that citizens buy health insurance or pay a penalty starting in 2014.

He argues the federal government doesn't have the constitutional authority to impose the requirement.

Other lawsuits are pending, including one filed by 20 states in a Florida court. Virginia is not part of that lawsuit.

The US Justice Department and opponents of the health care law agree that the US Supreme Court will have the final word.

WikiLeaks, Doing the Work of Totalitarianism

Theodore Dalrymple is skeptical of WikiLeaks' release of confidential American embassy cables. He warns that the whistleblowers are unwittingly doing the work of totalitarianism.

The idea behind WikiLeaks is that life should be an open book, that everything that is said and done should be immediately revealed to everybody, that there should be no secret agreements, deeds, or conversations. In the fanatically puritanical view of WikiLeaks, no one and no organization should have anything to hide. It is scarcely worth arguing against such a childish view of life.

What WikiLeaks will accomplish, Dalrymple predicts, is precisely the opposite of what it champions. "Far from making for a more open world, it could make for a much more closed one."

Secrecy, or rather the possibility of secrecy, is not the enemy but the precondition of frankness. WikiLeaks will sow distrust and fear, indeed paranoia; people will be increasingly unwilling to express themselves openly in case what they say is taken down by their interlocutor and used in evidence against them, not necessarily by the interlocutor himself. This could happen not in the official sphere alone, but also in the private sphere, which it works to destroy. An Iron Curtain could descend, not just on Eastern Europe, but over the whole world. A reign of assumed virtue would be imposed, in which people would say only what they do not think and think only what they do not say.

Dissolving the distinction between public and private is characteristic, if not the outspoken aim, of any totalitarian regime. "Opening and reading other people’s e-mails is not different in principle from opening and reading other people’s letters," argues Dalrymple. WikiLeaks has assumed the role of censor to the world, he believes, "a role that requires an astonishing moral grandiosity and arrogance to have assumed. Even if some evils are exposed by it, or some necessary truths aired, the end does not justify the means."

Senate Republicans Block "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Repeal

Politico reports today that the effort to repeal the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy went down to defeat this afternoon, with Senate Democrats and Republicans squaring off in a procedural vote.

In the face of a promised filibuster by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Democrats could not convince a single GOP senator to cross over and provide the 60th vote needed to begin debate on a defense spending bill containing the repeal measure.

This is extremely unfortunate. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is arbitrary government discrimination, pure and simple. There isn't a shred of evidence to support the preposterous assertion forwarded by some Republicans that allowing gay men and women to serve openly would somehow diminish "moral" or even the military's effectiveness. To the contrary, in practically all developed countries, gay men and women can serve openly and do so with success.

Tom Ricks of Foreign Policy offered a piece of sensible advice a couple of days ago, citing the unfortunate dismissal of three combat veterans under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

Collectively, they represent almost a decade of combat experience, a big handful of Purple Hearts and Bronze Stars, service as aide-de-camps to general officers and as platoon leaders and company commanders in combat, and the investment of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds. They have offered blood, sweat, and tears in defense of a nation that discriminates against them for no good reason.

This policy must end.

Beck and Palin Could Split the Tea Party

From Politico:

A POLITICO/TargetPoint poll conducted at the massive Tax Day protest on the National Mall in April discovered that tea party activists are divided roughly into two camps along a distinct fault line: one that’s libertarian-minded and largely indifferent to hot-button values issues and another that’s culturally conservative and equally concerned about social and fiscal issues.

Libertarians and conservatives could unite behind their shared frustration with Obama’s economic policies or the growing national debt, but they split over gay marriage and abortion. Specifically, 51 percent of tea party activists polled said “government should not promote any particular set of values,” while 46 percent said “government should promote traditional family values in our society.”

Beck and Palin are two of the most prominent spokespeople for the latter. If they make these issues more salient, they could risk dividing the movement.

Not only risk dividing the movement but risk alienating moderate, centrist voters and undermine a chance to reform the Republican Party along constitutionally conservative lines.

Beyond Toleration: George Washington's View of Liberty

Via Cato @ Liberty, quoted from a letter of President George Washington's to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, 220 years ago today:

The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

As Cato's David Boaz points out, note particularly Washington's dismissal of "toleration" as "the indulgence of one class of people," tolerating another and its practices. The full meaning of freedom is not the mere toleration of what a majority may otherwise frown upon or wish to restrict but the exercise by all of "their inherent natural rights."

Obama, Not So Sure About Ground Zero Mosque Anymore

Just when you thought Obama was making a stand for liberty, defending the construction of a "mosque" near Ground Zero, New York on Saturday, he's back to trying to please everyone today, assuring people: "I was not commenting on and will not comment on the wisdom of making a decision to put a mosque there."

Obama Defends Construction of Ground Zero Mosque

Credit when credit is due: President Barack Obama defended the construction of an Islamic community center in Lower Manhattan, near the site of where once stood the towers of the World Trade Center, saying the country's founding principles demanded no less.

"As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country," the president said at an annual dinner in the White House State Dining Room celebrating the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

"That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances," he continued. "This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable."

Terrorists Have No Rights

Designating people as "terrorists" is the easiest way to deny them any rights whatsoever. At his blog, Jacob G. Hornberger reports on the latest infringement upon Americans' constitutional rights: the Sixth Amendment right of the accused to "have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence." Unless you've been designated a "terrorist" apparently.

Without any constitutional amendment----indeed, without even a law enacted by Congress---the Treasury Department has issued regulations barring attorneys from representing specially designated terrorists without first securing a license from the Treasury Department. If an attorney represents such a terrorist without the special license, they'll criminally prosecute him---and possibly even deny him the assistance of counsel.

"Why do the feds hate criminal defense attorneys?" Hornberger wonders. Why, because they're obstacles to illegitimate conduct on the part of prosecutors and law enforcement. "They ensure that the government is not only following the law but also that it's not using perjured or manufactured evidence to convict people who the feds are convinced are guilty."

But in the War on Terror, trivial things as "natural rights" seem to be just obstacles, standing in the way.

Constitutional and Rational Questions About Gay Marriage

With California's ban on same sex marriage overruled in Federal Court last week, opponents are rattling up anew to contest the legitimacy of gay marriage. Two points are worth considering in this contest: constitutionality and objective law.

In a post at the conservative blog RedState, one Hogan neatly sums up the conservative position. On constitutionality, he argues that the highest law "should [not] be used by the Judiciary to invalidate the will of the people based on a protection that does not exist in the Constitution."

As for objective law, Hogan believes that it's "rational" to outlaw same sex marriage.

[I]t seems to me that we human beings may well have more than a "rational basis" to recognize marriage as it has been recognized around the world for literally thousands of years---the union of a man and a woman. For reasons of pro-creation and parenthood, to start with, but also for reasons of faith and morality, for some of us, any marriage other than such a union can never be, whatever society says, a "marriage" at all.

Notice first the fallacy of appealing to "thousands of years" of tradition before, correctly, dismissing the "will of society" as a legitimization of any measure. Presumably, the will of the people matters to Hogan only when a majority happens to agree with him.

Majority rule absent objective law equals mob rule however and it's anything but rational, let alone legitimate.

No matter Hogan's appeals to "faith" and "morality" (what morality?), there is no rational reason for denying homosexual couples to marry.

(As for procreation and parenthood---I have yet to see any study underwriting the blatant assumption that gays make for lesser parents. Besides, if it were so that children are best raised by a man and a woman, what to think of all the divorces and single parents out there? Should they be denied the right to have children? And just what has this to do with marriage anyway? What about all the unmarried couples who have children and what about all the gay couples who have no children? Some may like to cry "what about the children?" whenever they see something they don't like but that doesn't make it rational at all.)

Is there a constitutional basis for outlawing gay marriage perhaps? The Constitution, of course, doesn't say anything about marriage explicitly but it does provide that citizens of the United States are equal before the law. As long as government has a place in regulating marriage, which is to say that they are recognized as such by the law, it would seem fairly obvious that no arbitrary restrictions based, for instance, on race, heritage or sexual preference, ought be imposed on it.

Chief US District Judge Vaughn Walker, who repealed California's marriage law last Wednesday, recognized this when he ruled that the state's infamous Proposition 8 failed "to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license." What's more, according to Judge Walker, "Moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights." And that's about all there's to be said on the legitimacy of same sex marriage.

California's Same Sex Marriage Ban Overruled

A district judge in California has overruled the state's infamous Proposition 8. The proposition was passed in 2008 and amended the state constitution to provide that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."

According to Chief US District Judge Vaughn Walker, who made his ruling on Wednesday in a lawsuit filed by two gay couples who claimed the voter-approved ban violated their civil rights, the proposition "fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license." What's more, according to the judge, "Moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights." Imagine that.

The text of the ruling is available in full at The Huffington Post.

Why Doesn't the Fourth Amendment Apply Online?

Via Cato @ Liberty: "Compare and contrast."

Fourth Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Supreme Court (Katz v. United States):

[S]earches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment---subject only to a few specifically established and well delineated exceptions.

The Washington Post:

The Obama administration is seeking to make it easier for the FBI to compel companies to turn over records of an individual's Internet activity without a court order if agents deem the information relevant to a terrorism or intelligence investigation.

What was wrong with the original?

Smoking Increasingly Banned Worldwide

Around the world, legislators are hard at work to make it more difficult for people to enjoy one of the worst of their habits: smoking. Even in the United States, states and cities endeavor to prohibit the use of tobacco in more and more places.

Smokers in New York must feel like something close to pariahs these days as their mayor, Michael Bloomberg is toying with the notion of banning smoking from public parks and beaches. Bloomberg, who quit smoking himself several years ago, has crusaded to ban tobacco from bars and restaurants citywide, citing the dangers of second hand smoking. Now he also intends to free the workplace from the cancer sticks.

Because of heavy duties on tobacco, smoking has become an expensive habit in New York City. A pack of smokes is likely to cost the consumer somewhere between ten and fifteen dollars already. Taxes on cigarettes bring in over $400 million for the city every year.

New Yorkers aren't the only victims of paternalistic government. Earlier this year, the state of Wisconsin was among the latest to ban smoking from restaurants and workspaces. In Uganda, the legislature is thinking about banning smoking from people's private homes; a measure already undertaken in different parts of California. In Australia, Canada and Scotland, people may no longer smoke in public parking lots nor in the privacy of their own cars whenever they're carrying children, all at the expense of fines or, in the case of China, a prison sentence.

In Gdańsk, Poland, people are subject to a €25 fine for smoking on beaches while different cities in India have banned candles from restaurants because they could be used to light a cigarette. New Zealand is likely to enact a ban on smoking altogether. Such laws have previously been enacted in Bhutan, Egypt and Iran but to little avail. Unsurprisingly, people will smoke even if it's illegal.

Few people may be fully aware of the terrible effects which smoking can have on their health. Yet all people know that it's bad for them. That isn't stopping more than one billion people worldwide from enjoying it though.

Still, smoking rates have declined considerably in recent decades, especially in the developed world. In the United States alone, between 1965 and 2006, smoking rates dropped from a little over 40 to just 20 percent of the population. Bans and taxes were hardly responsible. People stopped smoking because they realized that they were ruining their health.

No matter the pervasiveness of smoking bans; no matter the duties lawmakers impose on tobacco products, people will smoke if they want to and that's their right. People control their own bodies, not the state. It is not the government's place to try to protect people against themselves, no matter the consequences.

Originally published at the Atlantic Sentinel, July 29, 2010.

Man Jailed for Importing Orchids

How about that? One George Norris from Texas was imprisoned for 17 months in 2004 because he had illegally imported orchids to the United States. His house was raided, his savings ransacked to pay for a lengthy trial, his livelihood destroyed, all because he shipped a few plants into the country? It's hard to believe but it happened.

Read more at the Heritage Foundation or watch Norris on Fox Business' Stossel Show which aired last week.

Porn Producer Cleared of Charges

Charges against the porn producer I posted about a few days ago have been dropped, reports the Washington Post.

John Stagliano had come under federal prosecution on obscenity charges. District Court Judge Richard Leon said evidence presented by the Justice Department's Obscenity Prosecution Task Force (OPTF), which was established under President George W. Bush in 2005, was "woefully insufficient" to link defendants to the production and distribution of two DVDs at the heart of the case. In other words, the case was dismissed on a technicality yet the judge, whom I'd like to declare hero of the moment, noted the following in his rebuke: "I hope the government will learn a lesson from its experience." Let's hope it does indeed.

Unfortunately, the OPTF will still be there with the power to investigate and prosecute porn film producing companies while US obscenity law remains a legal maze, leaving everyone in doubt about just what "obscenity" means to begin with. Stagliano's ordeal has come to an end but the porn industry as such still has the Federal Government to fear.