My largest complaint is that the book is not intellectually rigorous; it contains a series of assertions, but they don’t necessarily follow from each other. To be fair, politics wouldn’t exist if it were possible to prove or disprove every assertion through logic. Still, it galls me to see Levin put together a chapter which masquerades as a logical argument but in fact is nothing of the sort.

Take his chapter on faith, for example. As an aside, in just three pages, Levin proves the existence of God! His argument works like this:
1. Premise: The Founding Fathers declared in the Declaration of Independence that all men were endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
2. Premise: The Founding Fathers were paragons of humanity and their legacy is comprised of perfect documents whose every implication, no matter how far from the purpose of the text, was understood and intended by them.
3. Premise: Unalienable rights only exist in the context of an absolute moral code.
4. Premise: An absolute moral code can only exist supernaturally; a human moral code cannot be absolute.
5. Premise: It would be terrible if an absolute moral code did not exist; people would then have to think about the ramifications of their behavior. In fact, people are incapable of behaving morally or ethically without strict guidance from a supernatural power.
6. Deduction: Given 1 and 2, you should believe in God because they did.
7. Deduction: Given 3, 4, and 5, you should believe in God because failing to do so means that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are not actually technically unalienable. This contradicts 1 and 2. Therefore, God must exist!

There are any number of problems with this train of logic, but the biggest ones come from premise 2. Here’s a funny thing: he never explicitly states premise 2; he just assumes it’s a fundamental part of his readers’ worldview. Even so, I disagree with it. These people were smart, innovative, and dedicated to the nation they were helping define, but they were still human. It makes no sense to take their works as holy writ, perfect and infallible, then prove that God himself only exists because they said so.

If you don’t implicitly accept 2, both deductions fail to stand. As it happens, I also have major problems with 5. I don’t want to get into those here, though; it would only distract from my point, which is this: Levin rolls on and on like a juggernaut through this book, laying out argument after argument without stopping for breath. The vast majority of them are flawed. Refuting them all would require me to write a book of my own, and I don’t feel like doing that. Instead, I want to write a more general counter, explaining where I stand.

Fundamentally, I start politically with libertarianism: people should be free as much as possible to do whatever they want, and government should be constrained to the minimum necessary. However, I only need one example to point out why we do want some government instead of none at all: Somalia. That place is an anarchist’s dream; it hasn’t had a real government for over 15 years now. It is a terrible place to live.

So if we do need some government, what should its functions be? Let’s start with the most important one: establish the rule of law. That right there fixes Somalia’s biggest problem. However, it introduces another one.

Nobody’s conquered Somalia because it’s a violent shithole with few natural resources. A bunch of nations have the military capacity to just kill every Somali and take the land, but they don’t because that’s evil. Taking over without just killing everyone there means establishing the rule of law, and to say that’s hard is an understatement. Establishing the rule of law where it doesn’t exist is very difficult; particularly when the particular laws you want to impose aren’t the same ones the majority of the people want. This is the problem the US faces in Iraq and Afghanistan right now, and in Somalia in 1993. If, however, the people have a central government that they respect, conquering the nation becomes a lot easier. You just have to get the government to surrender, instead of forcing every person to on their own. The second priority of a government then needs to be this: defend itself and its people from external threats.

It might be interesting to live in a nation whose government restricted itself to those two principles. If nothing else, it’d be a test of how the free market actually holds up in comparison to a government for ensuring the quality of life for the people. Still, to the best of my knowledge, that hasn’t been tried since the middle ages. (Those sucked for the simple reason that 99% of people were serfs who had no rights and whose lives were nasty, brutish, and short.) Since then, every government on earth has had a third priority: the construction and maintenance of necessary infrastructure. Roads, bridges, ports, power lines and facilities; all these are traditionally government projects which fall under the infrastructure category.

Here’s where it gets political: infrastructure segues somewhere, in a messy and ill-defined way, into social services. The Founding Fathers were convinced, for example, that an efficient Postal Service was critical to the success of any democracy. Is that infrastructure, or social service? Is it more important to have the capability to cheaply transport pieces of paper, or bits of information? Finland recently established that broadband access to the internet is a legal right of every citizen. Is that the way to go?

I’m of the opinion that there are certain social services that the government should make available to every citizen. A stable national currency. Fire departments. Education, through at least a high school level. Health care, to at least a minimal standard, in the fields of emergency medicine, pharmacology, ob/gyn clinics, pediatricians, preventive medicine, and geriatric care. I’m not saying that the government should claim a monopoly on these services or that individuals should be required to avail themselves of the government’s offerings; I see no reason to deny the market the ability to compete to provide premium services. However, baseline offerings should be free to every citizen.

Calling these services rights seems a little silly to me. I wouldn’t mind, for example, if the government refused to treat the lung cancer of someone who’d smoked for 40 years, or obesity at all. You can’t deny someone their rights, but you can allow them to forfeit access to social services through personal choice. I’d argue that each of these services is productive for the government to provide because each of them improves the nation as a whole. The benefits of fire departments and a national currency should be self-evident. Public education, since its institution a century ago, has been a sore spot for most of that time, but I haven’t heard anyone arguing that children should not have the option to be educated regardless of their parents’ circumstances. Mostly, people agree that it is a good thing to have. 100 years forward, I expect people to treat health care the way we do public education now: a national service that, while often outperformed by the private sector, is so manifestly useful that essentially nobody is seriously arguing that it should be done away with.

Here’s the thing: there are services that government provides which aren’t rights, but which are nice. Streetlights are a good example. It costs a fair bit to erect a streetlight, and even more to keep it supplied with electricity and replacement lightbulbs. You could argue that streetlights reduce crime, or that they enhance driving safety, but I’ve seen no statistics about that and would actually tend to be skeptical even if they were produced because studies like the ones which would produce those results often have some sketchy methodology. Even Levin doesn’t complain about streetlights, though you’d expect him to: a government boondoggle with unproven results siphoning money out of the taxpayer? Call Rupert Murdoch! Have a Tea Party!

Here’s the thing: in the grand scheme of things, streetlights are cheap, and they’re nice to have. Through general affluence, technology, or rarity of necessity, other services sometimes become cheap and nice also. How much would it cost to maintain soup kitchens sufficient to entirely eliminate starvation in America? How much does it cost to maintain a single wing of F-22s (to say nothing of the purchase price!)? Which better serves the needs of the nation: preventing our citizens from dying directly, or maintaining an air superiority fighter without an opponent?

As it happens, starvation isn’t as weighty a problem as obesity; don’t misunderstand me as crusading here for the anti-starvation cause. The point is that if the cost is small enough, it can be worth providing a service which is unnecessary but nice.

Levin’s boojum, the demon he fears above all others, is the Statist: a terrible creature devoted purely to the consolidation of power in the government and the elimination of individual freedoms. There’s a wonderful description on page 15 of how utterly terrible this monster is. It’s a fierce and entertaining straw man, and a rhetorical trick that he may be physically addicted to. They’re everywhere! The media is full of them; the courts are comprised of them; the entire Democratic party is a thin front for them. Been to college? Beware, all those academics are Statists! Believe in separation of church and state? You’re a Statist! Think human activity is causing global warming? You’ve been taken in by a Statist conspiracy! Want the government to provide communal services? You’re on your way to being voted Statist of the Year! Also, actors are pretty much all Statists: “It is the rare actor who challenges the fraternity.”

Alas, though Levin goes on at length about the media’s tendency to invent a Terror of the Month, there’s no satisfying pull quote about inventing straw men to serve a political purpose. It seems he’s a bit too introspective for that.

Levin closes his book with a Conservative Manifesto: a list of goals and assertions which summarize his political position in a traditional, elephant-shaped package. At best, he comes off as someone who’s honestly trying to work for the best future of the nation, even if his methods and goals diverge from mine. At worst, it’s hard to believe he inhabits the same universe that I do. We have this in common at least: we both believe that people should seek to understand the world around them and work to improve it for the future. We both are glad to live in a society in which we can disagree vehemently and in writing about the way the nation should be run. We both think that individual liberty is the premise, and the Constitution is the basis, of the US system of government.

We just disagree about everything else.

Key points:

• whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force
• all acts of Congress which assume to create, define, or punish crimes, other than those so enumerated in the Constitution are altogether void
• to take from the States all the powers of self-government and transfer them to a general and consolidated government [...] is not for the peace, happiness or prosperity of these States
• where powers are assumed [by the Federal Government] which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy
• it would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights: that confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism
• this State does therefore call on its co-States for an expression of their sentiments on acts not authorized by the federal compact
• the co-States, recurring to their natural right in cases not made federal, will concur in declaring these acts void, and of no force, and will each take measures of its own for providing that neither these acts, nor any others of the General Government not plainly and intentionally authorized by the Constitution, shall be exercised within their respective territories

any Act by the Congress of the United States, Executive Order of the President of the United States of America or Judicial Order by the Judicatories of the United States of America which assumes a power not delegated to the government of United States of America by the Constitution for the United States of America and which serves to diminish the liberty of the any of the several States or their citizens shall constitute a nullification of the Constitution for the United States of America by the government of the United States of America. Acts which would cause such a nullification include, but are not limited to:

I. Establishing martial law or a state of emergency within one of the States comprising the United States of America without the consent of the legislature of that State.

II. Requiring involuntary servitude, or governmental service other than a draft during a declared war, or pursuant to, or as an alternative to, incarceration after due process of law.

III. Requiring involuntary servitude or governmental service of persons under the age of 18 other than pursuant to, or as an alternative to, incarceration after due process of law.

IV. Surrendering any power delegated or not delegated to any corporation or foreign government.

V. Any act regarding religion; further limitations on freedom of political speech; or further limitations on freedom of the press.

VI. Further infringements on the right to keep and bear arms including prohibitions of type or quantity of arms or ammunition; and

That should any such act of Congress become law or Executive Order or Judicial Order be put into force, all powers previously delegated to the United States of America by the Constitution for the United States shall revert to the several States individually.

I love this. It is legislative notice that NH views the Constitution as an agreement between the states, and that usurpation of powers by the federal government beyond those granted to it by the Constitution are a violation and revocation of that agreement. This does not change anything–as you remember from Civics class, this is in theory how things work already–but it’s a formal reminder of that fact.

I’d be surprised if this thing passes; perhaps I am cynical, but I think that people are in general too comfortable with the notion of the United States as a single federal entity to truly enjoy the possibility that the states can effectively limit its powers. Even so, I plan on writing to encourage this thing’s passage. If you’re also a NH citizen, I encourage you to do the same; you can find who to write to here.

So far, though, things are going pretty well.

I can’t help but be disappointed that it looks like Proposition 8 seems to have passed. I know that I’ve never lived in or near California, but that state often seems a bellweather of attitudes across the country. When will people finally learn that people are people, regardless? It doesn’t matter their sexual orientation, their gender, their skin color–they deserve equal rights.

People often seem astonished that Obama won, being black. I suppose it is a historic accomplishment, but for me at least, race really wasn’t a factor this election. I just can’t summon that feeling of amazement. The civil rights movement was history before I was born; it succeeded.

What would really impress me as a sign that America is ready to elect a person on policy instead of photos: the election of an Arab, openly Muslim president. I am betting I will not see that within my lifetime.

I voted for Obama. (Not today. Earlier. Absentee ballot.) I think you should too. Even if you disagree, though, vote. I’d rather live in a country with a population engaged in their democracy who generally disagreed with me than one full of people who thought like me but never bothered to exercise their franchise.

I know I stole it directly from BoingBoing, but this is too funny not to repost.

I can’t rule out the possibility that a bailout of some kind is necessary. I am not an economist; I am not up on the macroeconomic knowledge I’d need to have an opinion on the issue worthy of stating. My opposition to the bill had a lot more to do with the sense that politicians were trying to pull a fast one, and the fact that money allocated cannot be unspent, than any rational economic theory that it is better to let the market weather through it on its own.

The problem is that I don’t know any economists personally. I haven’t read any articles by economists for or against the bailout plan. I’ve heard a whole lot from politicians, who can’t be trusted to give an objective reading of the situation, and a lot from news organizations and bloggers commenting on what the politicians have to say.

A declining market hurts my net worth. The fact of the matter is that I’ve got ten times as much money in the stock market as in day-to-day bank accounts, and I’ve got the automatic transactions set up to channel a fraction of every month’s income into the market for retirement. The thing is, I can afford to wait this out. I don’t have much debt right now, and I’ve got no incentive to seek any in the short term. If it takes a decade or two for everything to recover, I’ll be annoyed at the enforced delay in recovering those assets, but it won’t affect my standard of living.

I’d love to see a well-reasoned, lucid explanation by a qualified economist showing how a bailout would help me. If such a thing were produced, I could see myself being persuaded that a bailout is the right course of action for the government. I suspect that this is true of a lot of people.

However, the absense of any such thing implies that it does not exist because qualified economists don’t believe the bailout will help the average American. Alternately, they do believe that it would, but they won’t waste the time writing a position paper on legislation that’s being pushed through an extreme fast track. They’re talking about writing and voting on an alternate bailout plan as soon as this Thursday. Without time to read and think through proposed legislation, how can it help but become a political process?

The problem with processes which are inherently political is that they are bad at predicting the worth of any given piece of proposed legislation. To get a realistic assessment, you need to go to subject matter experts. Nobody else’s opinion is worth much of anything.

In this case, I’m waiting to hear back from the economists.

Luckily, Obama didn’t try to make that argument. Instead, he showed that there was a better way. McCain had one point of argument: that he had the experience to make correct judgement calls. Obama doesn’t have as much experience, and he doesn’t pretend to. What he does have are well thought out, articulate plans. Instead of relying on the judgement of experience to guide him from crisis to crisis, he intends to anticipate the crises and head them off before they grow.

One of the telling moments in the debate was when the moderator asked exactly what the candidates would give up to pay for some sort of economic bailout. Obama listed his priorities: he will not give up on energy independence, healthcare, and education. He would like to invest in infrastructure if there are sufficient remaining funds. Everything else, by implication, could be cut as necessary to balance the budget. McCain, by contrast, had a half-baked proposal to cut federal funding for everything except military and veterans’ spending for one year. Cutting infrastructure maintenance, education, medicare–it’s hard to believe McCain actually thinks that this is a viable proposal. It’s a stunt, designed to sound good so long as you don’t think about it. There have been plenty of those recently from his campaign.

On the foreign policy side of things, McCain believes that victory in Iraq is the key to the GWOT, and he will pursue it at any price. Obama, on the other hand, believes in seeking the first causes: Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, and other terrorist organizations.

In short, Obama won this debate. McCain presented himself and his points well, but his positions just can’t hold up to reality. His speeches didn’t stand up to scrutiny, and he showed himself to be willing to make absurd proposals so long as they sound good. Obama was calm, articulate, and ready to lead. He stuck to the truth, and was willing to admit when his opponent had a good point. This is the man we need to elect.

The Act prohibits most members of the federal uniformed services from exercising nominally state law enforcement police or peace officer powers that maintain “law and order” on non-federal property.

However, the Army Times reports:

The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys.

Now they’re training for the same mission — with a twist — at home.

It’s no secret that the Army’s experiences in Iraq, Somalia, and other low-intensity conflicts have brought new focus to peacekeeping operations. They’ve even got their own Official Military Phrasing: Stability and Support Operations.

From the Army Times:

The 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.

…

This new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities.

From the globalsecurity definitions:

Support Operations provide essential supplies and services to assist designated groups. It relieves suffering and helps civil authorities respond to crises. In most cases, Army forces achieve success by overcoming conditions created by man-made or natural disasters.

That’s all right, then; that seems to be the intent of the posting. There’s nothing wrong with using troops to aid in disaster relief, and if the military was overflowing with troops with nothing to do in light of our long history of peaceful foreign policy, there’d be no real problem with designating a unit to that express purpose.

However, it is important to remember that Support operations are extremely closely associated in the military mind with Stability operations:

Stability Operations apply military power to influence the political and civil environment, to facilitate diplomacy, and to interrupt specified illegal activities.

Given troops trained in SASO operations, stationed in the US, I do not trust President Bush not to abuse their capabilities and attempt use them to influence the political and civil environment. Posse Comitatus exists precisely to prevent this sort of use within the US. Now, it has been substantially weakened.

I will close with this section from the wiki:

HR5122 also known as the John Warner Defense Authorization Act was signed by the president on Oct 17, 2006 John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007. Section 1076 (Text of Hr5122) is titled “Use of the Armed Forces in major public emergencies”.

Removing the legalese from the text, and combining multiple sentences, it provides that: The President may employ the armed forces to restore public order in any State of the United States the President determines hinders the execution of laws or deprives people of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection named in the Constitution and secured by law or opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws. The actual text is on page 322-323 of the legislation.

As of 2008, these changes were repealed, changing the text of the law back to the original 1807 wording, under Public Law 110-181 (H.R. 4986, Section 1068,) however in signing H.R. 4986 into law President Bush attached a signing statement which indicated that the Executive Branch did not feel bound by the changes enacted by the repeal.

---

President Bush Signs H.R. 4986, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 into Law

Today, I have signed into law H.R. 4986, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008. The Act authorizes funding for the defense of the United States and its interests abroad, for military construction, and for national security-related energy programs.

Provisions of the Act, including sections 841, 846, 1079, and 1222, purport to impose requirements that could inhibit the President’s ability to carry out his constitutional obligations to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, to protect national security, to supervise the executive branch, and to execute his authority as Commander in Chief. The executive branch shall construe such provisions in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President.

GEORGE W. BUSH

THE WHITE HOUSE,

January 28, 2008.