In his speech Wednesday, Obama actually said, “The fourth step in our approach is to reduce spending in the tax code.” At first, I had no idea what that might mean. I imagined he might be talking about tax credits of some kind. To anyone who thinks it through, it is obvious that under any circumstances short of a dire emergency the government should never be paying people money to change their economic behavior. Such government attempts to manipulate the economy are always disruptive, always create inefficiencies, and always distort rational economic behavior. 

Of course, this was a live speech, so such thoughts only had a second or two to flicker, like indications of al Qaeda in Libya, through my mind. Inexplicably, Obama next said, “[W]e cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society.” Well, of course we can’t, I thought, I don’t know how many millionaires and billionaires there are, but at a trillion a pop that would surely come to hundreds of trillions of dollars. Besides, how big a tax cut would it take for a millionaire to save a trillion dollars in taxes? But now Obama was clearly talking about tax cuts and specifically about the Bush-era tax cuts. Those were mainly reductions in the tax rates paid by most Americans. What did that have to do with “spending in the tax code”? I was confused.

Perhaps sensing his audience’s perplexity, Obama clarified, “Beyond that, the tax code is also loaded up with spending on things like itemized deductions.” The scales fell from my eyes! Now it was all too clear. He wasn’t talking about government spending at all. Or rather, he was redefining the concept of government spending to include what us unsophisticates had always thought of as “keeping our own money.” Now we know better. All money belongs to the government. When the government allows people to keep some of it, the government is spending money. 

Think about the implications of that. If your tax rate is below 100%, the government “spent” what it allowed you to keep. If you have mortgage payments and deduct the interest, the government “spent” what you had foolishly considered your untaxed money. Those of us who try to pay some attention to these matters had naively supposed that federal spending this year was projected to be around $3.8 trillion. Now we know federal spending is always equal to the GDP plus whatever the government can borrow on top of that. If it isn’t confiscated through taxes, it is “spent.” 

There’s a word for people who work for another with no rights to property or the fruit of their labor. Whose very clothes, food and housing depend on the generous spending of their benefactor. Who must be taken care of because they are mentally unfit to take care of themselves. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to puzzle out the answer.

 

Social security is a Ponzi scheme that has finally reached the point, as all Ponzi schemes must, of unsustainability.  It currently pays out more than it takes in and due to falling birth rates and rising lifespans will continue to do so forever.  It has reserves, primarily in the form of debt obligations from the United States, built up for decades when payments into the system exceeded payments out, but those reserves will be completely exhausted by about the 100^th birthday of the system, a few short years from now. 

But it can be fixed. 

Somewhat paradoxically, the fix involves keeping it, but removing its character as a Ponzi scheme.  To see how this is possible, we must examine a few of the details of how the Social Security system works.  Most people think their payments into the Social Security system create a personal account for them just as deposits into a savings account at a bank do.  And they are right, but only because most people don’t really understand how banks work either. 

The money you deposit in a savings account is not your money any more.   It belongs to the bank as soon as you deposit it.  It is not placed in a vault and held for you to withdraw later.  It is pooled with the rest of the bank’s money and invested in various things, generally loans to others.  What you think of as a deposit is actually a loan to the bank.  What the bank gets is your money.  What you get is a promise to repay the money, plus interest, at any time, or at a certain time, in the case of certificates of deposit.  A deposit in a savings account is a demand loan, one that must be repaid “on demand.”  Purchase of a CD is a term loan, one that must be repaid after a certain time or term.  This is not a simile or metaphor.  A deposit is not “like” a loan.  Legally, it is a loan, and, as with any other loan, the money belongs to the borrower, in this case the bank, which may spend it in any way it pleases, unless Security the loan documents (deposit agreement) specify otherwise.  The main difference between a deposit in a bank and a loan to, say, your brother-in-law, is they are governed by different sets of laws and repayment of the loan to the bank is guaranteed up to a specified amount by the federal government.

Social security operates in a similar way—with important differences.  The money you pay into Social Security is not stored somewhere for your future use.  Just as it is with a bank, it is no longer your money.  During times when Social Security was taking in more money than it was paying out, most of the money paid in was used to make retirement payments to those already retired and the excess was used to purchase US bonds.  But now, Social Security pays out more than it takes in, so payments into the system all go to retirement payments.  To make up the difference, they cash in some of the bonds.  But your money is gone, paid out to a retiree.  All you get is a bookkeeping entry.  The amount you paid in is applied to a formula that determines how much you will be paid after you retire and qualify for payments. 

Each year more baby boomers retire.  Each year the birth rate continues to decline.  Each year life expectancy continues to increase.  The result is less Security and less Security money is paid in and more and more money is paid out.  The reserve built up over decades will be exhausted in a few years.  The Social Security system is no longer buying government bonds with its surplus cash.  It is selling its bonds to cover its shortfall. 

When the reserve is exhausted, if Social Security is to keep making payments, the shortfall—the difference between payments in and payments out—will have to be made up by increasing the payments into Social Security (e.g., by increasing the Social Security tax or by increasing the pool of those paying into the system), or decreasing the payments out (e.g., by lowering the payment formula so that everyone gets less, or by increasing the retirement age so that everyone gets less, or by excluding some payers from the beneficiary pool, so that some pay in, but do not collect benefits) or by making up the shortfall from some other source, such as general government funds (i.e., by increasing the federal debt).  Or by doing some combination of all the above. 

None of these alternatives is very attractive.  Raising taxes and cutting benefits have never been hot sellers.  Most people will agree that financing a retirement system through annually increasing the federal budget deficit and the country’s publicly-held debt in perpetuity is not a sound financial plan.  But something must be done or those are the choices with which we will be faced. 

Substituting a private investment plan for Social Security, pejoratively labeled “privatizing Social Security,” has been vehemently resisted by those most interested in the outcome.  As bad an investment as Social Security is, and it is a very bad investment, it has one feature that is of critical importance to actual and potential recipients—it is certain.  Any proposal to replace Social Security with a more financially sound arrangement or one that would generate higher returns gets ambushed by that bugaboo of all retirement plans: risk.  Retirees and those about to retire are notoriously riskaphobic.  And rightly so.  When you are young you can get wiped out and start over, make a new plan, change direction and you have the time to still achieve your goals.  When you reach a certain age, as they say, you have fewer options.  Unless you plan to work until you are 80, you can buy a lottery ticket or take to robbing banks—neither a very good choice, especially for the risk averse or those whose reflexes may not be what they once were. 

Any proposed solution, therefore, must both be and be seen to be as safe as or safer than the current Social Security system.  It must, at the same time, convert a criminally irresponsible system into a system of actual personal investment.  So, I propose the following:

• ·         Keep the current system, with all its flaws and benefits;
• ·         Announce, with as much pomp and circumstance as can be mustered, that the federal government will guarantee full Social Security benefits to all participants in the system, meaning everyone who has paid into the system will receive the full retirement or disability payments to which his accumulated payments into the system entitle him; call this the Guaranteed Plan A (this has no legal effect, since the government is already obligated, but it could have great psychological effect and sets up what comes later;
• ·         Set up a new Social Security system, Plan B, that operates like a personal investment account in a market index mutual fund (I would not permit Plan B to hold individual stocks and bonds; the temptation of government officials to meddle and manipulate the system to favor their own pet projects would be too great; the question of which indexes should be held by the fund is beyond the scope of this paper, but they could include any of various stock and bond indexes, or any combination of them);
• ·         Guarantee that, regardless of what the market does, participants in Plan B will receive benefits at least equal to those available under Plan A, but will receive the higher level benefits if the performance of Plan B warrants it;
• ·         Offer everyone (or everyone more than five years from retirement age) who currently participates in (has made payments into) Plan A the option to make future payments into Plan B ( people should be allowed to switch from Plan A to Plan B at any time, with no deadline and no time limits, but no one can switch back to Plan A from Plan B);
• ·         Upon retirement, everyone who has made contributions to Plan A only will receive Plan A benefits, just as they do today.  Everyone who has made payments to both Plan A and Plan B will be allowed to choose to receive either (i) the benefits he has earned by his contributions to Plan A plus the proceeds of his Plan B account, or (ii) the benefits he would have been entitled to had all his payments been to Plan A, but the proceeds of his Plan B account would revert to the plan A pool.  Everyone who has made contributions only to Plan B would be able to choose between the proceeds of his Plan B account or the payments he would be entitled to had all his payments been made to Plan A, with the proceeds of his Plan B account going to Plan A.
• ·         Require new participants to enroll in Plan B.

Current retirees and those heavily invested in Plan A (the current Social Security system) will be stuck with their existing Social Security benefit payments.  At first, only a few will switch from plan A to plan B, but after a few years it will become obvious that the returns from Plan B far exceed those from plan A, and that there is no risk in switching and there will be a mass exodus.  A few diehards will remain in Plan A, of course, like Japanese soldiers hiding in the jungle for years after World War II, but nearly all will switch to Plan B.  In a few decades all Plan A participants will have rolled off the system and only Plan B will be left.  There is virtually no chance the government will ever be called to pay a cent on its guarantee of Plan B returns and when only Plan B remains, it may occur to someone to ask why we need the government to run this at all.  The overwhelming likelihood is that everyone’s retirement years will be enriched by benefits multiples greater than those paid by today’s Social Security system. 

The creation of the Social Security system was not an act authorized by the Constitution.  It was not even a moral act.  The people who fashioned it had to have known they were creating a Ponzi scheme and they deliberately set it up so that no one would ever collect much in the way of benefits.  Retirement age was deliberately set equal to life expectancy at the time.  Had they been able to foresee the future, they might have simply indexed the retirement age to the life expectancy and been done with it.  Social Security would still be solvent today, albeit with declining reserves due to a reduced birthrate.  In addition, Social Security is a very bad investment from the participant’s point of view.  There is no twenty-year period since its inception that a similar investment in the stock market would not have produced a much greater return.  So, Social Security is both illegal and immoral.  Be that as it may, it would be unconscionable to simply dissolve it after forcing millions to pay into it for so many years.  It may have been wrong (illegal and immoral) to create it in the first place, but the damage has been done.  Our duty now is to find the least poisonous way out.

Taxing health insurance is one of the most counterproductive ideas ever conceived by Congress. Taxing the best health insurance is an even worse idea. Taxing it in the name of improving health care or making it more accessible is insane. What you tax, you get less of. What you tax, you make more expensive. When Presidential candidate John McCain proposed eliminating the deductibility of the cost of health insurance, which would have effectively taxed its value at the marginal rate of the tax-paying consumer (generally the employer), people were appalled. Candidate Obama opposed the idea and ran several ads saying so. Now Democrat members of Congress and President Obama propose to tax the value of good health insurance (defined as insurance costing more than $8,900 for individual or $24,000 for family coverage) at a rate of 40%, a punitive rate higher than anybody's marginal income tax rate. To make matters worse, the dollar threshold is fixed, not keyed to inflation or the consumer price index or anything else. Thus, as prices rise, as they will, more and more people’s coverage will fall under the definition and become subject to the tax.

The predictable, and predicted (by members of Congress, the CBO, and the leaders of virtually every large labor union), effect of the tax will be to cause employers to purchase cheaper (hence, lower quality) health insurance for their employees, with the consequence of reducing the tax deduction available to the employer. That is, in fact, the intended effect of the tax. That is its purpose. By taxing good quality health insurance at a rate higher than the marginal income tax rate, Congress will force employers (i) to buy cheaper insurance for their employees, magically reducing the "cost" of health care and increasing the taxes employers must pay, or (ii) to pay higher taxes on the too-expensive insurance they retain.  The taxes thus raised will be used to offset increased costs of government subsidies to support mandated health insurance premiums.

Cheaper insurance, of course, means worse health care or more health care expenses borne by the patient, or both. That fact was not lost on the leadership of most of the major labor unions, whose members tend to have better than average health insurance mandated by their collective bargaining agreements. They complained to the White House and the Democrat leadership. And since big unions funnel many millions of dollars into Democrat campaign coffers and many more millions of dollars in value of “volunteer” campaign workers, their complaints carried weight. The Democrat leaders in Congress and President Obama agreed to postpone until 2018 the application of the health insurance tax to plans governed by collective bargaining agreements. For everyone else, the tax will begin in 2013. 

This adds insult to injury. Excluding union members from the tax is a good thing. Failing to exclude non-union workers is a very bad thing. A longshoreman in Boston, who operates a forklift and belongs to a union, will not have his health insurance taxed, but a man who does the same job in a chemical plant in Houston, with the same insurance plan as the man in Boston, but who does not belong to a union, will have his insurance taxed at a punitive rate and will likely lose it. Shockingly, as we noted above, that is not only the predictable effect, it is the intended effect. 

What compelling or even legitimate public policy objective does such a distinction serve? None. The tax policy distinguishes between identically situated individuals only on the basis of union membership. In effect, it taxes people for not belonging to a union. The power to tax, the Supreme Court has noted, is the power to destroy. Most taxes have a slightly more benign purpose: to raise money. In this case, however, the tax raises money by destroying high-quality health insurance plans that cover non-union workers. 

This creates a powerful incentive to join a union and tilts the playing field decisively in favor of union organizers. Workers must vote for union or risk losing their insurance. Union dues are cheap compared to the increased co-pays they will face under the lower-quality health plans the government is forcing them into. The cost in terms of freedom lost, however, is enormous. Work hard in school, apply yourself, develop your skills, make some smart career choices that result in a good job with a good salary and good health care for you and your family and it is all for naught unless you belong to a union. If the Democrats in the Congress and the White House have their way, the fruits of your responsible behavior are illegitimate precisely because they result from your own behavior, and not from some collectivist action performed on your behalf by cohorts of the powerful

I’m not much of a believer in the efficacy of labels, but that is tyranny and should be opposed. 

 

The incredible bravery of the Green Revolution in Iran and the harsh reaction of the ever more desperate reactionary rulers in that country have provided an opportunity for the U.S. to impose biting sanctions on that country, perhaps even in concert with others. Are you listening, Rahm Emanuel? The human rights crisis created by the Iranian government gunning down in the streets demonstrators against government oppression should not be allowed to pass unnoticed, unremarked, uncountered. Use it to immediately impose rigid sanctions against the regime enforced by a navel embargo, including a complete embargo of gasoline. Trot Obama out with an impassioned speech about the human rights of the Iranian oppressed and the injustice of shooting down in the streets huddled Persians yearning to breathe free. The American Left will rally to your cause (as will the Center and the Right), Obama’s numbers will shoot up and you will finally gain the international respect you so ardently crave.  Eastern Europe, especially, will celebrate the action. If the Iranian regime falls, the Norwegians might even announce that their faith was justified.

Immediate action will have a cascade of salutary effects. It will finally send a message to the Iranians that our opposition to the existing regime is serious. They currently believe we are spineless, with considerable justification. It will send a message to the Green Revolution that we support them and are willing to take action on their behalf. Heretofore, we have done nothing to support them, to our shame. It will send a message to Russia and China that America is willing to defend the principles for which it claims to stand. They do not believe that now and their misapprehension could well prove deadly in the future.

In the past, I have opposed the imposition of a navel embargo without the simultaneous destruction of the Iranian navy and Iran’s shore-to-ship missile defenses. An embargo is, after all, an act of war and Iran might actually try to magnify the cost by attacking the naval vessels imposing the blockade or by disrupting petroleum shipments in the region. Personally, I would announce the embargo by sinking Iran’s Russian-made, brown-water submarine fleet, but that may be a matter of taste. Listen to your Admirals as to the appropriate precautions to take. Iran has made a mistake of breathtaking scope and magnitude. Seize it. They have precipitated a crisis. Don’t let it go to waste.

 

Reagan’s Unity Principles

A draft resolution proposed for adoption by the RNC is being circulated by James Bopp, Jr., a RNC committeeman from Indiana. The draft lists ten statements styled “Reagan’s Unity Principles” and proposes that candidates subscribe to at least eight of the ten to receive RNC support. The list is intended only for the 2010 campaign season, which affects the analysis of it.

The “principles” are as follows:

(1)   We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill;

(2)   We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;

(3)   We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;

(4)   We support workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check;

(5)   We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;

(6)   We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;

(7)   We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;

(8)   We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;

(9)   We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing, denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and

(10)           We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership;

First impressions: It seems obvious that the list is a reaction to the embarrassment that ensued from the congressional race in New York’s 23^rd congressional district, where the RNC gave official support, and substantial funding, to Dede Scozzafava, a candidate appointed by local officials. Ms. Scozzafava would have been much more at ease caucusing with the Democrats, as she demonstrated by endorsing the Democratic candidate when her support collapsed after Doug Hoffman, an actual conservative candidate, entered the race. The debacle cost Republicans the seat.

The first five are much too negative in tone, even for use in a single season, and the first six are not so much statements of conservative principles as a list of Obama policies that Republicans oppose. Reagan, of course, never opposed any Obama proposal, but he certainly would have if a precocious young Obama had made any while Reagan was alive. It is not enough to oppose bad policy, you must propose effective alternatives. Number six is too deferential to the military as a general proposition and most likely will not be an issue in 2010. Seven is too vague; does it mean military action? Against North Korea? We may want to consult with the residents of Seoul before we loose the cruise missiles. What is the Constitutional basis for the Defense of Marriage Act? Nine is incoherent. What does it mean to oppose health care rationing and denial of health care? As for ten, not even the NRA opposes all government restrictions on gun ownership.

In general, most of the positions taken are merely statements in opposition to specific Democrat proposals that will be moot or irrelevant in 2010.

Taking the statements in order:

(1)   We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill;

Of course we do, but by the summer of 2010 the “stimulus bill,” whatever that is, will be a distant memory, if it is not forgotten completely. The Democrats will be talking up “fiscal responsibility” and “lowering the deficit” and Republican adherence to this statement will simply fall on air or be seen as just another instance of Republican “me tooism.”

Instead, Republicans should emphasize cutting taxes across the board to stimulate job creation and growth, since unemployment will still be high in mid to late 2010. An emphasis on cutting taxes will draw a sharp distinction between Republicans and Democrats and provide an opportunity to remind voters of the abject failure of the Democrats massive spending sprees.

(2)   We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;

By mid 2010 government-run health care will either be a fact or dead. If it failed, there is no point taking a stand against it. Interstate competition and tort reform would certainly be improvements, but the people are not clamoring for health care reform in any form. If it passed, there will be no appetite among a weary public to continue the debate until later in the decade when they have had some experience of the system’s shortcomings.

(3)   We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;

It is not at all clear what “market-based energy reforms” are or what they might be intended to reform. If cap-and-trade is still an issue in 2010, it surely must be opposed, but that seems an unlikely prospect. 

Tension with Iran and Venezuela is certain to increase in the coming year, so a more coherent energy position would be to emphasize the national security implications of dependence on foreign oil and the economic catastrophe that would result from a significant interruption in energy supplies. Any aggressive action by the U.S. or Israel against Iran would almost certainly result in an embargo of oil from both Iran and Venezuela and possibly others. Shipping through the Straits of Hormuz would be interrupted for an indeterminate period of time and it is possible that even shipping through the Red Sea and Suez Canal could be interrupted.   It is absolutely imperative that we immediately open the continental shelf on all four coasts to exploration and production and immediately begin a rationalization of our nuclear power plant approval process. It would be a joke that France can build nuclear power plants in half the time we can, except it isn’t true. We can’t build them at all due to impossible regulatory hurdles.

I think this is the most serious national security threat facing our country today; imagine our energy supply suddenly and indefinitely cut in half.

(4)   We support workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check;

Of course we do, but without more this is letting SEIU set our agenda for us. 

(5)   We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;

That’s it? No amnesty? What about the fence? What about a guest worker program with a fine and reentry requirement? How about an accelerated path to citizenship based on a specified term of military service? Economic turmoil has turned a tide of immigration into one of emigration. Now is the time to strike with constructive ideas that mitigate the inflow that is sure to come when the economy turns and accommodate the real demand for cheap labor that sponsors the flow.

(6)   We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;

Victory in Iraq has been achieved. Hopefully it will continue to hold through 2010 as Iraq’s security forces continue to improve, its people grow accustomed to the benefits of democracy and our forces continue to withdraw. Afghanistan is less developed culturally, economically, and in terms of infrastructure, but victory is still achievable there with suitably aggressive suppression of the Taliban and al Qaida accompanied by a strengthening of the Afghani army under a unified command. 

While recommendations of experienced field commanders ought to be given great weight in deliberations, a blanket statement of support for unspecified recommendations is overly deferential. Whatever you think of Obama’s decision-making capacity, we are still a nation of civilian control of the military.

(7)   We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;

With the possible exceptions of Russia, China, and Venezuela, the entire world would like to see North Korea and Iran contained and their nuclear threats eliminated. The differences lie in the details of timing and methods. Climbing on that bandwagon doesn’t serve to distinguish Republicans from the Japanese, much less the Democrats.

The circumstances of Iran and North Korea are in no way comparable and it is irrational to attempt to apply the same policy to both. An attack on North Korea risks the destruction of Seoul by North Korean nuclear retaliation and the intervention of, if not outright war with, China. On the other hand, North Korea will never be able to hurt us very badly, even if it develops a nuclear-tipped ICBM, and an attack by North Korea on the U.S. or any of our Asian allies would unite the world behind us and allow us to destroy her with impunity. The proper strategy is the one we have been pursuing; continue talks in whatever format while waiting for the Dear Leader to die. Time is on our side.

Prior to the construction of a deliverable warhead and missile system, an attack on Iran poses no comparable risks. The worst Iran could manage would be scud-like attacks on Israel and a disruption of shipping in the area through her relatively limited navy, air force and shore-to-ship coastal defenses. Iran’s air force and navy could be effectively suppressed, but her shore-to-ship and ballistic missile forces would be much more difficult to eliminate and traffic in the Hormuz Straits can be disrupted by ordinary artillery fire. If, however, Iran is allowed to develop a nuclear weapon and effective delivery system, she would bring Israel under threat of virtual annihilation. Our freedom of action in the Middle East would thereafter be subject to an Iranian veto, at the peril of a hostage Israel.

Unlike the situation in Korea, time is on Iran’s side. They haggle, negotiate, propose, counter, hide, reveal, cooperate, obstruct, agree then withdraw agreement, all in an effort to stall, to buy time, while they continue to perfect the means to build a weapon. The proper strategy, therefore, is to call for immediate and draconian sanctions, with or without allied support, in the hope that the economic disruption will incite regime change. When that fails, we must be prepared to strike unless Israel beats us to it. In the interim, we must begin immediately to prepare for the inevitable consequences (See the discussion of (3) above,)

(8)   We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;

As a matter of principle and sound public policy, it is important for anyone who cares about the future of our country to support the institution of monogamous heterosexual marriage. There are perfectly valid, non-religious reasons to limit marriage to one adult man and one adult woman. The principle public policy reason for marriage is the promotion of stable families. When the institution of marriage breaks down, children tend to get inadequately supervised, poorly educated, badly acculturated, and insufficiently cared for. A sad example of this in the US is in the black community where 2/3 of the babies are born out-of-wedlock and the crime and unemployment rates are horrible. The state, therefore, has a vital interest unrelated to any religious stricture in regulating marriage in a manner calculated to strengthen rather than weaken the institution.

The U.S. Constitution is silent with respect to marriage. It neither guarantees a right to marriage nor authorizes the federal government to regulate the institution. The Constitution permits, and even contemplates, that the states regulate virtually all aspects of life in ways deemed reasonable by them. Marriage is one of those aspects of life. The states get to define it and they get to regulate who may participate. In some states you can marry at 16, in others not until you are 18. The 16-year-olds in the latter state are not thereby denied their Constitutional rights.

If the object is to protect marriage, as it should be, rather than to suppress gay behavior, we have by far the better argument. Every reason I have ever heard offered in favor of homosexual marriage is disingenuous. Gays have a right to pursue happiness. Good, go, be happy. But no one has a right to do just as he pleases to be happy. I might find joy in robbing banks, but they won't let me anyway. Gays want to live together. Well, they live together now. Gays want to express their eternal love and commitment. Fine, do so. Write poems to one another; exchange golden chains; get matching tattoos. Gays want to own property in common. Nothing could be simpler. You merely have to both sign the car title or the deed. Gays want to control each other's medical treatment. Just give each other a medical power of attorney, or better yet, prepare a living will; you should do that anyway, it’s a lot cheaper than getting married and much more exact and likely to be honored than simply showing up in an emergency and saying you are married.

There is a wealth of sociological information demonstrating that children raised in a stable, heterosexual marriage are much more likely to be healthy, well-adjusted, well-educated, happy, productive adults. Drawing the marriage line at that point makes tremendous secular sense. Once that line is gone, there is no principled reason to redraw it anywhere. Marriage would not be expanded to include gays, it would be destroyed as an institution.

There is no principled reason to stop at homosexual marriage, once the monogamous, heterosexual line is broken.  If marriage between two men is OK, why not three men? Three women?  Two men and one woman?  One man and 27 women.  Two men, a girl and a goat?  One man, three women and all their children (as sexual partners, not merely as a family)?  Don't they all have a right to be happy, to express their undying love and commitment to one another?  Should we permit our moral insecurities to interfere with that quest?

What non-religious argument would limit marriage to just couples? There are, in fact, religious arguments for polygamy. Mormons and Muslims both believe, for religious reasons, that polygamy is a good thing. Why not polyandry? Why not pedophilia? Arranged married? Why not bestiality?

(9)   We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing, denial of health care and government funding of abortion;

Government funding of abortion ought to be opposed as a matter of conscience. As long as demand exceeds supply, however, it is impossible to avoid health care rationing or denial of health care. There are, for example, far more people who need liver transplants than there are livers available for transplant. When a suitable organ becomes available, someone or some system must decide who gets it and who has to wait, and maybe die waiting. Rationing in such circumstances, and in many similar situations, is inevitable, and no amount of opposition will change that.  You might as well oppose flooding and tornados.

(10)           We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership;

Not even the NRA opposes all government restrictions on gun ownership.  Convicted felons and those with certain psychological disorders, for example, are rightly not permitted to own guns.  The proper question is whether it is constitutionally permissible to deny law-abiding citizens the means to exercise their right of self defense.

An important omission from the list is any statement regarding education.  

RNC members should reject the resolution, for the reasons given above.

 

Technically, it was not terrorism. It was not perpetrated against civilians to demoralize or intimidate as a political weapon or policy. It was not an episode of the newly-minted-for-the-occasion second-hand post traumatic stress syndrome, either. It was not random; nor was it directed against anyone toward whom he felt a personal grievance. He did not storm into a civilian office to shoot an ex-girlfriend or ex-wife. He did not shoot a superior officer for giving him a bad review, or for scheduling him for deployment to Afghanistan, or for denying him early resignation from his commission.

What it indisputably was was a devout Muslim who believed that the War on Terror was a war on Islam; who believed that a suicidal attack on those who might kill his Muslim brothers was an act of heroism, akin to jumping on a grenade to save your comrades; and who believed that killing those who might kill his Muslim brothers was equivalent to saving the lives of his Muslim brothers. It was done in a processing center, where soldiers were assembled, but not just any soldiers, soldiers being prepared for imminent departure for Afghanistan to join in the fight against his fellow believers. It was done to his own cries of “Allahu Akbar! (God is Great!)” signifying the religious, devotional nature of his act. 

It was done by a self-proclaimed Jihadist, who designated himself a Soldier of Allah on his business card.  (The notion of a “card-carrying Jihadist” would be laughable to those of us of a certain generation, were it not embedded in such tragic circumstances.) 

It was, therefore, an act of war made by an officer of the United States Army against the United States in the person of soldiers of the United States Army. 

Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution of the United States provides: “Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.”

    When I was in law school at the University of Texas in the late seventies, the school had an intramural flag football league.  The dominant team, year after year, was coached by one of the most senior and powerful professors at the school.  They had sponsors.  They had access.  They had discipline.  They had continuity and tradition.  They actively recruited the best athletes in the school.  They practiced in secret so no one could see their plays.  They were called the Legal Eagles.  They won every year.

    A group of us decided to take them on and put together a team of second and third rate players--the best we could find from among those passed over by the Legal Eagles.  We had a couple of great players and a lot of good ones.  The Legal Eagles had a lot of great players.  We knew we couldn’t win.  We didn’t have the speed, we didn’t have the size and we didn’t have the playbook.  But we were good enough to get to the finals and we made a good game of it, even leading at one point.

    When we were organizing the team and attempting to make a realistic assessment of our prospects, it came time to pick a name for the enterprise.  Since I was young and still somewhat witty, I suggested the “Saline Abortions,” Roe v. Wade still being a relatively recent event, as an accurate reflection of our chances.  There may have been beer involved.  I was outvoted and we chose some other name that I do not remember now, likely something deeply meaningful like the “Appellate Briefs” or “Defensive Motion,” or some such.  But the point is, the Fighting Ducks aside, people do not choose self-denigrating names for their sports teams.  Even in jest.  Even in an enterprise as hopelessly meaningless as an intramural football league at a law school.

     Only a form of deep delusion, bordering on psychosis, could induce an outfit like the NCAA to conclude that schools choose demeaning names for their sports teams and mascots.  The slightest contact with reality would inform even a casual observer that sports teams choose nicknames and mascots that they believe reflect positive attributes they either have or aspire to.  Names evoking power, aggression, endurance, perseverance, pride, intelligence and teamwork are common.  Among teams choosing animal mascots you see such names as Eagles, Bears, Cougars, Lions, Wildcats, Owls, Dolphins, Wolverines, and Marlins, but not Vultures, Buzzards, Snakes, Leeches, Opossums, Sparrows, and Bunnies.  Not that there is anything wrong with sparrows and bunnies, but they do not evoke the desired image.

    Consequently, when teams choose human groups for their namesakes, they look for the same virtuous attributes: strength, cunning, courage, etc.  So we see Spartans, Saints, Celtics, Fighting Irish, Volunteers, Buccaneers, Pirates, Ragin’ Cajuns, Vikings, Cowboys, and, yes, Indians, Braves, Chiefs, Warriors, and the names of various Indian tribes and tribal groups such as Chippewas, Choctaws, Utes, Seminoles, Fighting Sioux, and Illini.  But we do not see the Nazis, Mongols, Vandals, Fascists, Cowards, Bums, or the Venal Sycophants.

    Sports teams do not choose names associated with American Indians in order to compliment or insult Native Americans any more than calling a team the Eagles is intended to honor or dishonor a bird, but rather they are attempting to borrow some of the virtue already associated with the chosen symbol.  In the case of Indians, that virtue derives in part from the myth of the Noble Savage--stoic, courageous, spiritual, deeply in tune with nature.  But it also derives from our actual experience with various Indian tribes during the past three centuries.  Even tribes that had developed some form of agriculture and permanent settlements were very much closer to a transition from hunter-gatherer societies than the Europeans with whom they made contact, and, of necessity, very much more aware of and in tune with the environments in which they lived.  In the west, after only 200 years of exposure to the horse, certain tribes became, in the words of one opponent of European descent, “the finest light cavalry in the world.”  In war, Indians from New England to Florida, from the Great Lakes to the Dakotas to the deserts of the Southwest, were known and feared as courageous, cunning, skillful fighters.  Braves were aptly named.

    Most Indians who have given the matter any thought recognize that the use of their image keeps alive positive associations in the minds of average American sports fans.  It is a good thing.  The attitude adopted by the NCAA--that calling someone an “Indian” or a “Brave” is an insult--is about as racist as it is possible to get.  The title “Brave” was considered an honor by the tribes that adopted it.  The NCAA considers it “hostile or abusive.”

If you take seriously even the most moderate global warming predictions, you have a moral obligation to oppose spending more money trying to redevelop New Orleans’ lowlands and a moral obligation to oppose those trying to coax low income families into moving back there.

Most of the Earth’s surface is below sea level and, in fact, is covered by ocean. Only 30 percent of the Earth’s surface is dry land. On the dry portion, there are several areas that actually lie below the level of the ocean. These low-lying areas remain dry land only because they are separated from the ocean by higher elevations. Three of the more famous of these areas are the Dead Sea, Death Valley, and New Orleans. Of those three, only New Orleans is adjacent to the ocean. A large portion of New Orleans is below sea level. That area is part of New Orleans and not part of the seabed only by virtue of massive levees built and maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at a cost of billions of federal taxpayer dollars. The levees are designed to withstand up to a Category 3 hurricane; they could be improved to resist up to a Category 4 or even a Category 5 hurricane, but at the cost of additional billions of dollars and only after decades of effort. Key words in the foregoing description are “up to”; Hurricane Katrina, which caused so much damage in 2005, had weakened to a Category 3 hurricane by the time it made landfall on the Gulf Coast, the level “up to” which the levees were designed to withstand, but the levees broke anyway.

A modest rise in sea level of only one or two feet, as predicted by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, would virtually guarantee that another Category 3 hurricane will overwhelm the New Orleans levee system and flood the sunken areas again.

In addition to being an increasingly and inevitably ineffective barrier to reinvasion by the sea, the levee system creates two additional problems. The first should be of grave concern to anyone who cares about the environment in general and the ecology of the central Gulf Coast in particular. The levees interfere with the flow and, consequently, with the silt and nutrient transport system of the Mississippi River. Prior to the construction of the levees, the river had built up an extensive delta consisting of an enormous system of wetlands extending from New Orleans to the sea and for hundreds of miles along the Gulf Coast on either side. With the flow disrupted by the levees, deprived of the sediment and materials needed for maintenance and growth, the wetlands are shrinking and subsiding, actually sinking into the sea. This process is exacerbated and accelerated by any rise in sea level.

Not only are these disappearing wetlands ecologically valuable in their own right as rich havens of biological diversity for marine, terrestrial, and arboreal life, they also serve as natural barriers to storm surges all along the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts. Thus, the wetlands help protect not only New Orleans, but scores of communities along the Gulf Coast. These communities rely on the wetlands to dissipate storm surges along the coast—they are not protected by the extravagant levees surrounding New Orleans. As the wetlands subside and the sea rises, this protective barrier disappears. Thus, the futile attempt to save a portion of New Orleans dooms dozens of communities and thousands of mostly poor people along the Gulf Coast.

If that were not bad enough, there is an even more insidious, more morally reprehensible consequence caused by the levee system and the development it is meant to facilitate. No rational person who had a choice in the matter would voluntarily live below sea level in proximity to the ocean, levee or no levee. It is Russian roulette, Atlantian style. But the real estate is understandably cheap. Accordingly, low income families are herded into government housing and shotgun shacks in the high-risk areas. That is as cynical, as immoral, as racist a policy as could be devised in modern America. It effectively barters the lives of New Orleans’ poor, i.e., black, population for tax dollars and federal subsidies.

Virtually all of those displaced from New Orleans have moved to places like Houston, Dallas, and Baton Rouge—places with larger and more vibrant, more dynamic economies than New Orleans had at its peak. Better jobs, better schools, better housing, less crime, and better neighborhoods are available at their new homes. Many of them lost much of their personal possessions, but in terms of their living conditions, they are much better off—returning to New Orleans will not restore their possessions. Call it the Moses Red Sea Plan: lure undesirables into an area below sea level and let nature take its course. It works great, unless, of course, you are the Egyptians. When the consequences of an action are predictably disastrous, good intentions are irrelevant. We may wish to help those who survived Hurricane Katrina, but placing them back into harm’s way is the antithesis of the help they need.